Worlds Within Worlds:
The Story of Nuclear Energy
Volume 3
Nuclear Fission · Nuclear Fusion · Beyond Fusion
by Isaac Asimov
United States Atomic Energy Commission
Office of Information Services
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 75-189477
1972
Nothing in the history of mankind has opened our eyes to the possibilities of science as has the development of atomic power. In the last 200 years, people have seen the coming of the steam engine, the steamboat, the railroad locomotive, the automobile, the airplane, radio, motion pictures, television, the machine age in general. Yet none of it seemed quite so fantastic, quite so unbelievable, as what man has done since 1939 with the atom ... there seem to be almost no limits to what may lie ahead: inexhaustible energy, new worlds, ever-widening knowledge of the physical universe. Isaac Asimov
Nuclear energy is playing a vital role in the life of every man, woman, and child in the United States today. In the years ahead it will affect increasingly all the peoples of the earth. It is essential that all Americans gain an understanding of this vital force if they are to discharge thoughtfully their responsibilities as citizens and if they are to realize fully the myriad benefits that nuclear energy offers them.
The United States Atomic Energy Commission provides this booklet to help you achieve such understanding.
UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
Dr. James R. Schlesinger, Chairman James T. Ramey Dr. Clarence E. Larson William O. Doub Dr. Dixy Lee Ray
ISAAC ASIMOV received his academic degrees from Columbia University and is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the Boston University School of Medicine. He is a prolific author who has written over 100 books in the past 18 years, including about 20 science fiction works, and books for children. His many excellent science books for the public cover subjects in mathematics, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and biology, such as The Genetic Code, Inside the Atom, Building Blocks of the Universe, Understanding Physics, The New Intelligent Man’s Guide to Science, and Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. In 1965 Dr. Asimov received the James T. Grady Award of the American Chemical Society for his major contribution in reporting science progress to the public.
VOLUME 1 [Introduction] 5 [Atomic Weights] 6 [Electricity] 11 [Units of Electricity] 11 [Cathode Rays] 13 [Radioactivity] 17 [The Structure of the Atom] 25 [Atomic Numbers] 30 [Isotopes] 35 [Energy] 47 [The Law of Conservation of Energy] 47 [Chemical Energy] 50 [Electrons and Energy] 54 [The Energy of the Sun] 55 [The Energy of Radioactivity] 57 VOLUME 2 [Mass and Energy] 69 [The Structure of the Nucleus] 75 [The Proton] 75 [The Proton-Electron Theory] 76 [Protons in Nuclei] 80 [Nuclear Bombardment] 82 [Particle Accelerators] 86 [The Neutron] 92 [Nuclear Spin] 92 [Discovery of the Neutron] 95 [The Proton-Neutron Theory] 98 [The Nuclear Interaction] 101 [Neutron Bombardment] 107 VOLUME 3 [Nuclear Fission] 117 [New Elements] 117 [The Discovery of Fission] 122 [The Nuclear Chain Reaction] 127 [The Nuclear Bomb] 131 [Nuclear Reactors] 141 [Nuclear Fusion] 146 [The Energy of the Sun] 146 [Thermonuclear Bombs] 148 [Controlled Fusion] 150 [Beyond Fusion] 158 [Antimatter] 158 [The Unknown] 163 [Reading List] 165
Enrico Fermi (left) and Niels Bohr discuss physics as they stroll along the Appian Way outside Rome in 1931.