Nuclear Fission Visually Explained

[@Higgsinophysics]

Support me per video here: www.patreon.com/Higgsino (multiple benefits) One-time-tip here: ko-fi.com/higgsino

[@Chitose_]

just one thing i'm thinking about: why do the non-fissile products go back to fissile fuel after a while?

[@danielstanev5685]

They don't, there's not enough space on a screen to show all the nuclei, so all the enriched nuclei would be used up pretty quickly, the simulation replaces them to keep the ratio of U-235 at 5%

[@NorthForkFisherman]

Welcome to the watchlist, everyone!

[@HectorBrocklebankHBFash]

how original 👏👏👏

[@NorthForkFisherman]

@@HectorBrocklebankHBFash What color is jealousy?

[@HectorBrocklebankHBFash]

@@NorthForkFisherman Oh yes, I'm jealous of your lack of brain cells indeed, It must be such a simple life for you being a fucking oblivious mong

[@HectorBrocklebankHBFash]

@@NorthForkFisherman incel

[@copperntz5907]

​@@NorthForkFisherman Watching this after the Cody's Lab refining uranium video. I should be expecting a visit soon.

[@anantakabir8390]

Comes back with an absolutely amazing video. Love your content

[@Higgsinophysics]

Glad you liked it. Thank you :D

[@omamba5105]

Small gripe: fission of U-235 doesn’t always release 3 neutrons. It’s 2 or 3 neutrons, averaging ~2.4 neutrons every fission. (I wanna say it’s 2.41 neutrons, but it’s been a long time since I’ve dealt with fission).

[@eftamin]

Thank you for additional information. I guess he wanted to keep things as simple as possible. Most viewers are just enthusiastic about nuclear science because of Chernobyl NPP. =)

[@enekuda05]

Man such an under-subscribed channel! Amazing videos!!

[@Etrehumain123]

Oh that's why when Vsauce talk about hiroshima he said that most of the fissible material was blown away and only 1% or something reacted. It's because it was not dense enough, pressurized by compressing explosions on all side to contain the fissible material. I get it now.

[@savagemuir9360]

Fantastic video! Also the tamper is forced inwards by the compression explosion, so it provides more compressive kinetic energy to keep the core together for a bit longer.

[@zapphysics]

Absolutely phenomenal video!! Great to see you back!

[@Higgsinophysics]

Thank you zap! I'm glad to be back again, we should do a collab again sometime :) !

[@MrGrace]

This is one of the coolest videos ive ever seen on Nuclear physics.

[@moiraatkinson]

This channel has been an excellent find! I’ve become really interested in all things nuclear after watching Plainly Difficult videos, then finding Kyle Hill. A bit late as I’m already retiring age! This was another amazing simulation and a great way to explain the workings of an atomic bomb. You’ll have to do a simulation to explain the so called hydrogen bomb next 😊.

[@jkzero]

Nice simulations, but why did you use graphite for the neutron reflector? Graphite is a great neutron moderator, but that is the last thing you want to do to neutrons in a bomb. Little boy used tungsten carbide and the Gadget used depleted uranium. FYI, I have all the calculations solving the neutron diffusion equation to determine the critical mass on my channel.

[@Higgsinophysics]

Hey thanks for letting me know. If you can find me your specific video, I'll add that as a video-link-popup - whatever it's called. But anyways I chatted with Alex Wellerstein. He said the same thing as you, graphite is not correct for an atomic bomb. I didn't know, but I just wanted to name an example material for moderation. Miss on my side. Btw love your channel. Let me know if we should do something one day. I'm currently working on using these simulations of the Chernobyl disaster.

[@Higgsinophysics]

Also, this is hilarious haha imgur.com/a/pswEp5P

[@jkzero]

@@Higgsinophysics thanks for sharing with your viewers. The video is titled "How to calculate an atomic bomb's critical mass," which can be easily found on my channel. I wanted to share the direct link but KZbin only lets the channel owner to include URLs in comments. I also got in touch with Alex when I made my videos about critical mass, I asked his permission to show his Critical Assembly simulator. I started writing the code for my own simulation but I realized that it would be too time consuming and ended up just using Alex's simulator. I am glad you liked my channel, I just discovered yours, subscribed right away. Collaborating in the future would be neat!

[@zergs78]

😮😢😮😢🎉😢😢😊🎉😅😂😢😊🎉😢😅😂😢😂😢😮😂😢😮😅😂😢😢😢😢🎉😢🎉🎉😢😮😂😢🎉😢😮😂😢😮😢😮😂😢😢😅😂😢😂😅😂😢😅🎉😢😮😢😮😢

[@Dmayrion2]

Isn't the n,f cross-section for thermals ~700 barn where fast neutrons are ~7 barn? Or does the ~100 barn n,g reduce the yield despite the increase in cross-section?

[@malithaw]

Love your video style

[@ckarloshenryck6392]

glad to have u back!!

[@Higgsinophysics]

it's great to be back. Thank you!

[@ramadhanisme7]

Thank you for your video, really enlightened me about nuclear

[@AdamPeterson-ow5my]

2:51 On the contrary, it would be great for bowling.

[@fichaeljmox6532]

This is best explanation I ever heard!

[@fabianquevedo2707]

3 years waiting for the return!

[@Higgsinophysics]

Hopefully the next wait will be a bit shorter... Happy you are still here!

[@severinopereiracarollofilh5933]

CONGRATULATIONS. Very good video and easy comprehensible explanation!

[@Higgsinophysics]

THANK YOU. Glad you liked it !

[@artmiller2606]

Thank you for an enlightening video.

[@ruperterskin2117]

Appreciate ya. Thanks for sharing.

[@barry7608]

Well explained thanks.

[@pankajkulkarni6722]

Hey, awesome simulation!!

[@carlosgravy7966]

Well done!

[@B_S123]

Subscribed. Pure and great.

[@chupacabraattack]

Now I understand how control rods work!

[@MsMsmak]

Excellent.

[@critiqueo]

Awesome, awesome video

[@louwriebadenhorst5676]

Simply Excellent

[@VoidHalo]

I just want you to know that even my cats love watching your videos. I like to program animations of little balls bouncing around, kind of like the way the animations in this video look. My cats would sit and watch them for hours. Something like simulation of brownian motion, for example.

[@matin4415]

nice explanation

[@TheContrarian-ii8su]

What program did you use to simmulate this? Unity and C# or just pure code?

[@Trebor_I]

There are numerous programs you can use, but would be easy in Unity or Unreal.

[@markreed5665]

I enjoyed that thank you

[@meme98766gg]

Awesome, now please do nucl fusion

[@jarek.fojtik]

Hello, please make a video about H-bomb. Great job!

[@MultiSciGeek]

Great channel, should work on the audio a bit

[@ThomasHaberkorn]

1:44 Regarding the split of U235 into Kr92 and Ba141: do the fission products occupy a larger/smaller/same volume than the original U235?

[@NZAnimeManga]

To be clear, it's not always these fission products -- there's a distribution (which affects the avg. number of neutrons per fission) -- the heat of the fuel rods themselves are self-annealing (but also some if the fission products, like Kr, Xe etc. are gasseous so degas themselves+ must be accounted for in reactor design)

[@ThomasHaberkorn]

@@NZAnimeManga very interesting, but not what I'd like to have found out

[@NZAnimeManga]

@@ThomasHaberkorn the self annealing answered your question. Yes fission products introduce stresses into the crystal structure (due to volume changes) but the rods are hot enough that this resolves itself in terms of impurity placement + gaseous elements escaping from the metal/ceramic

[@connorgillispie7128]

ur awesome

[@user-ed7gm7ol8k]

very good video

[@Higgsinophysics]

thank you, much appreciated.

[@aureliogrolla]

kaeri nuclear table reminds me of my graduation

[@rafaelasabchucalovato9439]

I am trying to specialize post grad in Applied Statistics 😂 it seems criticality gets a lot into probability too. I might be super super wrong.

[@MollyGodiva]

The probability math of criticality is very hard. Took decades to crack. Hope you are very good at probability generating functions.

[@GeoffryGifari]

What happens to the control rod's material as it keeps absorbing neutrons?

[@Higgsinophysics]

Nuclei absorbing neutrons eventually becomes unstable. So it will have to be replaced at some time. I guess we could have a look at the decay channel of boron-10. But control rods rarely absorbs enough to loose their effectiveness, and are instead retired due to structural issues

[@CraftyF0X]

Well if B-10 (typically used in reactors) absorb a neutron it may becomes B-11 which is still stable, and if that absorb another one it still quickly decays to C-12 which is stable again. So it is remarkably resistant to activation. Still may affected by neutron embrittlement. (not in the case of boric acid though)

[@bronzedivision]

Your quip at 11:09 was really dumb for a scientist. Fun fact that "problem" you're alluding to was actually fixed by making those "evil" graphite tips 1.7 meters LONGER. And several RBMKs continue to operate just fine to this day in that arrangement. This is possible because the graphite tips in an RBMK reactor are not stupid or accidental parts of the design; and in fact perform many key functions in normal operation. The material didn't get to the bottom of the control rods due to random chance or incompetence.

[@Gigachad-mc5qz]

Can we get the source code pls

[@GeoffryGifari]

Hmm wonder why graphite can reflect neutrons...

[@Higgsinophysics]

Not sure either, I don't have any great explanations other than we can calculate the scattering cross section and see it's high for neutron-graphite reactions :D

[@CraftyF0X]

Not gonna lie, it wouldn't be my frist idea for a reflector, tungsten, berylium rather these sort of things. That being said graphite is surely a good moderator, and since moderation requires elastic scattering...

[@DrDeuteron]

Don’t ask why the nuclear force does what it does. It’s never gonna make much sense.

[@Riuhkuhku]

11:05 😂😂😂😂❤❤❤

[@benquinneyiii7941]

Soccer ball

[@MollyGodiva]

Sorry but this "simulation" is not remotely accurate. It makes important assumptions that are not true. Also there is an upper limit to k, and it is much lower than your graph shows.

[@pyrobola8715]

He's not trying to simulate reality with 100% accuracy. He's using abstraction to make it understandable to the average person.

[@OutrageIsNow]

Who?

[@justin2221]

ai voice kinda sux

[@Higgsinophysics]

this isn't ai voice

[@justin2221]

@@Higgsinophysics Oh really? You sure about that?

[@Higgsinophysics]

@@justin2221 I'm flattered you think it's AI.

[@justin2221]

@@Higgsinophysics well that's good at least, I'm just noticing inflections between certain sentences that sound exactly like AI generated voice. Either way I enjoy your videos, thanks for the content.