Examples of nucleon in the following topics:
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- A nucleus weighs less than its sum of nucleons, a quantity known as the mass defect, caused by release of energy when the nucleus formed.
- Once this energy, which is a quantity of joules for one nucleus, is known, it can be scaled into per-nucleon and per-mole quantities.
- To convert to joules per nucleon, simply divide by the number of nucleons.
- This graph shows the nuclear binding energy (in MeV) per nucleon as a function of the number of nucleons in the nucleus.
- Notice that iron-56 has the most binding energy per nucleon, making it the most stable nucleus.
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- The same force also pulls the nucleons, or neutrons and protons, together.
- When a nucleon is added to a nucleus, the nuclear force attracts it to other nucleons, but primarily to its immediate neighbors due to the short range of the force.
- The nucleons in the interior of a nucleus have more neighboring nucleons than do those on the surface.
- The binding energy per nucleon generally increases with the size of the nucleus but approaches a limiting value corresponding to that of a nucleus with a diameter of about four nucleons.
- The electrostatic energy per nucleon increases without limit as nuclei get larger due to the electrostatic force.
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- The strong nuclear force is the force between two or more nucleons.
- This force binds protons and neutrons together inside the nucleus, and it is most powerful when the nucleus is small and the nucleons are close together.
- The resulting elements (shown here as Kr-92 and Ba-141) do not contain as many nucleons as U-236, with the remaining three neutrons being released as high-energy particles, able to bombard another U-235 atom and maintain a chain reaction.
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- Like electrons, nucleons can be arranged in shells that are most stable in certain numbers.
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- Helium has an extremely low mass per nucleon and therefore is energetically favored as a fusion product.