Hydrogen, the Light-Bringer

Ahhh, the Hydrogen atom.

[not to scale]

One proton (positively charged), one electron (negatively charged), locked together in a quantum mechanically determined orbit.  Of all the items in the world, few do we understand as well as the Hydrogen atom.  It is the most common element, as 74% of the light matter in the world.

Now see, you know that thing, that particle-wave duality some folks like to bring up when talking about how batshit crazy the universe is?  So imagine those two dots up there not as dots, but as little standing waves, just sitting there, waving about in a constrained area.  Now apply some pressure.  Imagine that pressure gets these waves all excited, and they start waving about a little bigger - the more pressure, the more excited, the bigger the wave.

Now imagine two of these.  Actually, imagine trillions upon trillions, an ocean of H+.  That's a lot of mass, and a lot of mass means a lot of gravity, which means a lot of pressure.  Get enough of these little fellas together, and those waves start getting big.  In fact, the wave of the proton starts to get so big, it reaches outside of the electron radius.  But all these atoms are right next to each other, so that means it's reaching into the other atom.

Generally, the electron's negative charge (both from it's own atom and the surrounding atoms) repels the proton, and keeps it inside.  But this wave is so big, the proton slips right past this 'impenetrable' barrier, and hops right into the other atom.

This puts two protons in one atom, which is called Deuterium [EDIT: what actually happens is the reaction releases a positron, removing the positive charge from the system and turning the proton into a neutron; H/T Ian], sometimes 'heavy hydrogen'.  To oversimplify the process (get them deets here), all this excitement overcoming barriers results in Helium, every child's  favorite inhalant.

That cluster of neutrons (no electric charge) and protons in the middle there tends to keep itself in line.  What this means is that it is easier, energetically, to hold a Helium nucleus together than a Hydrogen atom.  This is significant.

So we have all these trillion trillion trillions of trillions of Hydrogen , pressuring each other, turning into Helium, and Helium is easier to hold together.  But we know energy is always conserved!  If the energy holding the Hydrogen isn't needed anymore, where did it go?

It was...released.

That energy is the nuclear explosion we all know and love and rely on.  This is how stars are born.


Have a wonderful day!