2 ms·
> which fly apart at about 3% of the speed of light, due to Coulomb repulsion So is that at first an electrical force that results in kinetic acceleration?
by epistasis 2y ago
> which fly apart at about 3% of the speed of light, due to Coulomb repulsion
So is that at first an electrical force that results in kinetic acceleration?
- tmiku 2y agoWhat do you mean by "at first"? The protons are pushing each other away via that Coulomb repulsion while they're all in the pre-fission nucleus, but at that time it's not enough to counteract the strong force (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_interaction) holding the nucleus together. Once that once nucleus has been split into parts that can move freely, the daughter nuclei are both accelerated by an electromagnetic force.
- epistasis 2y agoWell, yeah, once the distance gets out of the well of the strong force, the nuclei are at the top of a big electrical force gradient that gets converted to kinetic energy. With proper ionization of the daughter atoms that kinetic energy could potentially be converted back to electric, well, potential.