Conceptual Physics (12th Edition)

Published by Addison-Wesley
ISBN 10: 0321909100
ISBN 13: 978-0-32190-910-7

Chapter 34 - Think and Discuss - Page 655: 72

Answer

More energy.

Work Step by Step

Uranium has atomic number 92. If it were split into three parts, the products would be nuclei with atomic numbers just slightly greater than iron, which has atomic number 26. (Contrary to the question statement, the 3 parts could not be of equal size because 92 is not evenly divisible by 3.) As seen on the graph of Figure 34.16, the mass per nucleon for 3 atoms that close to iron would be even less than when uranium splits into 2 parts. In other words, more mass is converted to energy.
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