Nuclear fission and Fusion ?

Question

whats the difference ?
name atleast five or as many as you can think of :]

state your source

Answer 1

fusion happens in the sun. two smaller atoms have their nuclei joined together
fission happens when a atom bomb explodes. a larger atom has its nucleus split
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion

Answer 2

Nuclear Fusion is taking hydrogen atoms and squeezing them together to become helium. The resulting release of energy can be used to make nuclear bombs. It is also how we think the sun works. So far, man has not been able to harness this process to produce electricity. Edmund Teller, the inventor of the hydrogen (fusion) bomb won the Nobel Prize in Physics for figuring out how to do this. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize for telling everyone not to use the fusion bombs. Hans Bethe head of the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project won Nobel Prize in Physics for figuring out this process inside stars.
Another difference: the "waste" from fusion is helium.
This is the same process by which the lithium fusion bomb works.

Nuclear Fission is taking a big heavy atom of plutonium, uranium, or other heavy element, and having it split into smaller pieces, also releasing energy. This process can also be made into nuclear bombs. Man has successfully used this process to generate electricity in nuclear power plants. It was the focus of the Manhattan Project. The "waste" from fission is highly radioactive, and has half-lives on the order of millions of years for uranium & plutonium.

Answer 3

nuclear fission is the splitting of an atom, fusion is the combining of atoms.

nuclear fission generally involves only larger atoms (uranium-237, plutonium or the like) and projectile protons (hydrogen atoms).

nuclear fusion can be the fusion of two very small particles (hydrogen and helium)

the fusion reaction is as of yet only self sustaining at astronomical temperatures and pressures - it is what powers the sun. on earth, even our most advanced fusion tokamaks cannot gain energy from the fusion and maintain a significant chain reaction.

fission can produce energy on earth, a ton of it. so long as the large atoms are packet together to a point called critical mass at which there is a sufficiently strong likelyhood that a proton sent of from the collision of a radiocative element and a proton will continue to hit another large atom and maintain the chain reaction. it can produce as much instant energy as a hiroshima bomb or as controlled a burn as a nuclear submarines engines.

Answer 4

1. With fission you are splitting atomic nuclei into smaller ones, with fusion you are combining atomic nuclei into larger ones.

2. The waste byproduct of fission is larger, less stable, "radioactive" isotopes (fallout).

3. The waste byproduct of fusion is helium (after combining to hydrogens), meaning less radioactive fallout.

4. You need extreme heat and pressure to start fusion, this is done by setting off an fission reaction in the case of H-bombs (fusion).

5. Fission is relatively easy to get going, you just need to have a means of keeping the fissile material in close proximate since it doesn't like to stay together.

Source: Common knowledge and my graduate degree.