Applications of Nuclear Physics in Physics

The binding energy curve is a map of where energy can be released. It rises steeply through the light nuclei and falls slowly through the heavy ones, which means energy comes out if you move a nucleus towards the middle from either end. Moving a heavy nucleus down is fission and moving two light ones up is fusion, and both are worth an enormous amount of energy per kilogram. The difference between them is practical rather than fundamental. Fission starts easily and can be controlled rod by rod in a reactor, while fusion needs temperatures that only a star or a very carefully built machine can supply. The blocks give the fission and fusion energetics, the barrier that stands in fusion's way, the multiplication factor that decides whether a reactor runs steady, and the dose relations that describe what all this radiation does to living tissue.