A little confusion about nuclear fission discovery and theory

[DAgent]

So this has me scratching my head a bit and I'm looking for a clearer answer, if possible, please.

I've been reading the splitting of the atom was first performed in 1932, however, the theory of splitting the atom wasn't done until 1938.

Now I'm not thinking time travel played any role in this, but trying to read up and sort out the timeline on how it could be discovered before the theory was crafted is leaving me with a splitting headache, pun intended. It's also been a busy day in general and I'm worn out for other reasons, so I've effectively gone word-blind right now.

I'm assuming there was some earlier versions of the theory before the atom was split, and that the theory was revised until they felt that got it right. Is this the way it happened or am I way off? Which is more like to be true to be utterly frank.

Thanks.

 

[BAYLOR]

So this has me scratching my head a bit and I'm looking for a clearer answer, if possible, please.

I've been reading the splitting of the atom was first performed in 1932, however, the theory of splitting the atom wasn't done until 1938.

Now I'm not thinking time travel played any role in this, but trying to read up and sort out the timeline on how it could be discovered before the theory was crafted is leaving me with a splitting headache, pun intended. It's also been a busy day in general and I'm worn out for other reasons, so I've effectively gone word-blind right now.

I'm assuming there was some earlier versions of the theory before the atom was split, and that the theory was revised until they felt that got it right. Is this the way it happened or am I way off? Which is more like to be true to be utterly frank.

Thanks.

Im no physicist , but a common sense standpoint , before atom splitting was possible and happened , certain key steps and discoveries to have taken place prior.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Cockcraft and Walton 'split the atom' in 1932 by bombarding lithium with a proton beam and showing that when the proton hit the lithium nucleus (and was absorbed via Quantum tunnelling) the nucleus would break apart into two alpha particles.

Hahn and Strassmann in 1938 discovered nuclear fission by bombarding uranium with slow neutrons and finding some barium.

The difference between the two experiments is that Cockcraft and Walton's experiment is not fission - it was not as a result of initiating an internal radioactive decay process. (Just smashing things together!)

So I guess what you read is saying: that a theory of nuclear fission was only developed in 1938 to account for Hahn and Strassman's work.

Probably unhelpfully, 'splitting the atom' could be applied to both, and probably was in popular culture.

Does that help?

 

[Swank]

Apparently splitting a lithium 7 nucleus via alpha wave bombardment was not a "nuclear fission reaction" - the thing discovered in 1938 that releases gobs of energy.

 

[Foxbat]

Nuclear Fission can also occur naturally

Meet Oklo, the Earth’s Two-billion-year-old only Known Natural Nuclear Reactor

Physicist Francis Perrin sat at a nuclearfuel-processing plant down in the south of France, thinking to himself: “This cannot be possible.” It was 1972.

www.iaea.org