Question: How do atoms split? :D

Oliver Gordon answered on 13 Mar 2019:

The main way is a process called Nuclear Fission (this is how today’s nuclear reactors work). Basically, atoms are made of protons, neutrons and electrons. The ratio of protons to neutrons in atoms tells you how stable they are (although this ratio changes a little bit away from 1:1 as the atoms get bigger!).
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What this means is that if you have a stable atom just chilling out, minding its own business, and fire a neutron or proton at it. That will make it unstable, and go through radioactive decay. You get alpha decay (two protons and two neutrons aka a Hydrogen atom), beta decay (an electron), or gamma decay (a high energy photon aka the thing that carries light). This happens to make the atom stable again. But because of this thing called the mass defect (a bit complex I’m afraid!), the old mass of the atom, and the new mass of the atom + what came out of it when it decayed is slightly different! This then goes into the most famous of equations, E=mc^2. You take the change in mass (m), multiply it by the speed of light squared (c^2), and figure out the energy you’ve released!