Fission or Fusion Politics

In writing my last blog "Good vs Evil" I could not later help but see a connection to nature itself and the similarities are astounding.  As an engineer who has been taught fair amount of physics its common for me to draw these kinds of comparisons and I would like to share them with you.

In our universe there are 2 methods of deriving nuclear energy: Fission and Fusion.  Nuclear Fission has been used for years in our world to generate Tera-Watts of electrical energy every day.  The basic concept is fairly simple.   As you move up the Periodic Table, larger and larger atoms that have lots of protons become increasing unstable.   That means they "split" into smaller atoms that are more stable.  These "splits" release protons and neutrons which can be used to bombard other heavy atoms and make them heavier and therefore.. more unstable so they will split as well.   Each split releases some high energy protons or neutrons which  can be used to heat water to high temperatures such that steam is generated which can be used to turn a turbine and generate electricity.   Fission doesn't take much effort at all since the process is a naturally occurring one.  All one has to do is set up the conditions (fuel mostly) and nature does the rest.   For fission reactors, engineers spend most of their time developing safe-guards to turn the system OFF in case things get out of control. 

Fusion, on the other hand, is not a simple process to create though our Sun does it very efficiently.  Fusion takes 2 atoms (the simplest if Hydrogen) and tries to combine them into heavier atoms (H + H = He).   The problem with fusion is that in the nucleus of each atom is a proton which is positively charged.   Therefore there is a repulsive force between to protons that multiplies by 4 every time you move the 2 protons closer by half their distance.  In other words the force when 2 protons is 6 inches if 4 times stronger than when they were 12 inches apart.  So if we take 2 protons from 12 inches apart to almost 3/1000 of an inch,  the force will be  4^10 or almost 1,000,000 times stronger than at the beginning.  However, if you can get the protons close enough, another stronger force called the Strong-Nuclear-Force takes over and they "snap" together.   During this "snap",  the particles are accelerated towards each other and whenever you accelerate a charged-particle (protons or electrons), a large amount of energy is given off.  In fact, fusion generates more than 6 times more energy per nucleon than fission.   This is also why Helium is "slightly" lighter than the 2 Hydrogen that were put together.  Normally 1 + 1 = 2, but in fusion,  1+1 = 1.99999999 .   So where did the .00000001 go?  It was turned into energy.  Newton's 1st Law says that energy cannot be created or destroyed only changed in form.   From Einstein's famous E=mc2 equation,  the "lost" mass was turned into energy of the reaction. 

So how does all of this relate to our world?  

As I posted earlier, its easier to get people to hate each other than it is to get them to work together.  I used the term "lazy politics", but now I would like to refer to that as "Fission Politics" because that is what it is.   Its the easiest of the 2 types of politics we have.  It's natural and takes no real effort to make it happen.   All you have to do is supply the right "radioactive material that is unstable" and put it in the same area as stable elements, and let nature do the rest.   The same goes for what is happening in our world today.   The OWS movement for example, can be compared to the unstable Uranium (U-238).   The idea is that they will eventually bombard others around them with their "message" (whatever that message is) and infect them, making them unstable as well.   Or another example would be what is happening in Florida with the Trayvon Martin case.  People like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton act as radioactive fuel hoping to divide blacks and whites further apart rather than bring them together, for by doing so they reap thousands of dollars for themselves and use this "energy" to push more blacks to vote for the democrat party.  

Fission politics is cheap politics, but its also the most dangerous.   Fusion is more safe than Fission since it does not happen naturally.  In Fusion, a lot of energy must be put into the process to force the protons close enough to snap together.  If this external energy were removed, the process ends immediately.  But in Fission, the process needs energy to STOP the process and sometimes things get so out of whack, you can't stop it (ex: Chernobyl) and all you can do is evacuate and bury the reactor in cement.  

There in lies the second similarity.  Those who push Fission Politics think they can control it.  But they are wrong.  They can't!  Eventually their divisive methods will get the better of them and things will become unraveled and leaving the government no choice but to "dump cement" on our society and bring it under submission.   Some may wonder if that is what they want to happen.

We need to show that Fusion Politics is the way to go.  Yes, it's difficult and doesn't happen naturally, but we have shown before that an immense amount of energy is released in our country when we "snap" together for a common cause (see WWII or landing on the moon).   I believe Ronald Reagan practiced Fusion Politics and it can be done again.   We as the voters must first vote out of office all of those who practice Fission Politics because they will never want to put the energy into it (lazy).   We need to find leaders who will seek common ground for the good of ALL Americans and not just their own party.  

Finally, I would like to add one more similarity.   France has developed nuclear energy for years and has over 40 times more nuclear facilities than the U.S.  In doing so they have found some fascinating ways of safe-guarding their reactors from over-heating (meltdown).   The one way they found was to line the bottoms of their reactors with flakes of cobalt metal.  When the reactor runs at a normal temperature, these flakes sit on the bottom quietly.  But if the water temperature gets above a certain temperature, the flakes expand and become "buoyant" and start to float to the top.   The Cobalt acts as an anti-catalyst in that it absorbs the radiation between the rods and shuts-down the reaction, allowing the water to cool.  

We need the same process in regards to Fission Politics.   We need people on either side of the divide to step in when these issues arise an speak up for the other side.  We need blacks to stand up for whites and whites to stand up for blacks.  We need the poor and middle-class to stand-up for the wealthy and the wealthy to stand up for the poor and middle class.     We need people to point to Fusion Politics rather than Fission Politics.   These people, like the Cobalt, can absorb much of anger and antipathy that results and allow our country to cool down.  

Our future as a nation depends on it.