Question: How does a Atom bomb create such a large scale destruction

  1. It causes a nuclear reaction, which releases a lot of energy very quickly from something that is very small. Nuclear reactions release a lot more energy for a given mass than compared to eg chemical reactions. Things get really hot and expand really quickly, causing an explosion.

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  2. One for the physic/spaces boys.

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  3. Plus people use them as destructive weapons…. which does not make sense to me. Aboriginal people have only just been allowed back to their lands in SA and WA after the British detonated atomic bombs on their land without permission.

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  4. It all comes down to Einstein’s famous equation: E=mc^2. This means that mass and energy are intrinsically related.

    If you take a really heavy atom with a lot of neutrons like uranium, and then bombard it with more neutrons, the atom becomes unstable and splits in two. This is the nuclear reaction that Matthew is talking about. When atoms like uranium are “split”, the two parts that come out have less mass than the original atom. E=mc^2 says that the difference in mass has been converted into the energy; that was the energy that was holding the two pieces together.

    The energy has to go somewhere, and it goes off in the form of intense radiation, which is what causes the destruction.

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