Carefully, the sliver was placed inside a spectrometer — a device ... How could adding one neutron to uranium end up producing an atom half the size? Hahn was flummoxed and assumed he had ...

Heavy water can help keep such a chain reaction going. As each uranium atom breaks apart, it shoots out neutrons that can go on to split other atoms. But the neutrons are much more likely to ...

They began to suspect that Fermi hadn't created a new element at all but might have actually split the uranium atom in two -- at that point a barely imaginable event. Before they could confirm ...

Every atom contains a lot of energy. And there are certain kinds of atom - like this stuff, uranium - which are unstable and can split. When they do, they release radiation and heat. The radiation ...