From: relativity@paulba.no
Den 04.01.2026 20:20, skrev J. J. Lodder:
> Paul.B.Andersen wrote:
>
>>
>> My claim is:
>> There would have been no atomic bomb in 1945 if
>> the nuclear fission of uranium had not been discovered
>> in 1938.
>
> Or without the discovery of the U235 isotope,
> in 1935, by Arthur Jeffrey Dempster.
>
>> The fission was not discovered because someone thought
>> that since E = mc?, it must be possible to release energy
>> by splitting atoms.
>
> Accurate values of nuclear masses had been known
> from mass spectroscopy since sice the 1920s.
> Through this it was already known that there were vast stores of energy
> trapped in all atomic nuclei. (and not just radioactive ones)
> People started speculating about liberating nuclear energy since then.
> (without yet having a clue as to how this might be practically achieved)
Exactly!
My point was that the equation E = mc^2 was no help
to how to liberate the nuclear energy in matter.
>
> The key discovery was that it was the rare U235 isotope
> that was splitting under slow neutron bombardment,
> not the more generally occurring U238 isotope.
> (and that such a splitting of an Uranium nucleus would liberate
> more free neutrons)
>
> This insight was due to Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch,
> who explained fission on basis of Bohr droplet model of the nucleus.
> (Meitner, L.; Frisch, O. R. (1939). "Disintegration of Uranium by
> Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction". Nature. 143 (3615): 239.)
>
> Meitner was of course passed over for the Nobel prize for it.
> She was Jewish, a woman, and a mere theoretician,
> so she didn't stand a chance,
>
> Jan
>
>
>
--
Paul
https://paulba.no/
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