Question

Why can fusion and fission both produce energy?

Answer 1

Fission

1. It is the splitting of a heavy unstable nucleus like uranium into two smaller nuclei.
2. It produces fragments of lower total mass, here mass is converted into energy.
3. The energy released by fission is a million times greater than the energy released in chemical reactions, but is lower than the energy released by nuclear fusion.
4. One class of nuclear weapon is a fission bomb, also known as an atomic bomb or atom bomb

Fusion

1. It is the process in which light nuclei like hydrogen fuse together to produce larger nuclei.
2. Fusion takes place in stars like the sun.
3. Very few radioactive particles are produced by fusion reactions.
4. This process releases energy because the total mass of the resulting nucleus is less than the mass of the two original nuclei combined.
5. The leftover mass gets converted into energy.
6. The energy released during fusion is three to four times greater than the energy released during fission
7. Here, a decrease in mass is equal to the energy produced, $E=m{c}^2$ (Einstein's mass-energy relation).

So, we can say, fission and fusion both produce energy.