Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy, also called atomic enegry, is the most powerful kind of energy known. It produces the tremendous heat and light of stars -including our sun- and the obliterating power of the destructive nuclear weapons. Nuclear energy is a result of changes in the core (nucleus) of atoms.

 
Nuclear power is probably the answer to our depleting natural resources crisis and will sufficiently provide electricity for millions of years to come.

Nuclear energy remained undiscovered until the early 1900's. Scientists made advances in the areas of matter and energy. They knew all matter consists of atoms and later learned that the core of the atom made up the greatest part of its mass and that it was held together by an extremely powerful force. It thus contains a huge amount of energy because of this force. The final step was to get the nuclei to release the energy it contained.

Scientists first released nuclear energy on sufficient scale three years after World War II, at the University of Chicago in 1942. It was this achievement led to the development of the atomic bomb. Three years later the first atomic bomb exploded in the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16 1945. The temperatures at the blast core equaled the those at the center of the sun. In August U.S. planes droped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in Japan.

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