Publication of the Paper! The Academic World Is Shocked! The Neutron Race! Storm Clouds Gather! At the End of Bombardment, I Make My Move!

After Fermi obtained Artificial Radioactivity by bombarding lithium with neutrons, he was not satisfied with that alone.

He wanted to go on and clarify the mechanism behind the entire nuclear reaction.

With the discovery of the Positron, as well as Li Qiwei's theory for analyzing nuclear reactions, physicists had now begun trying to explain the mechanisms of artificial nuclear reactions.

For example, Irène and her husband had recently published a paper giving a detailed explanation of the mechanism behind the Artificial Radioactivity they had discovered first.

Irène's experiment was this: she bombarded aluminum with α particles, producing radioactivity, with the emitted radiation being positrons.

After detailed and precise research, the process could be written as nuclear reaction equations:

①:He(2,4)+Al(13,27)→P(15,30)+n(0,1);

②:P(15,30)→Si(14,30)+e(1,0).

Here, the first number in the parentheses represented the number of protons; the second represented the sum of protons and neutrons.

An α particle—that is, helium He4—had two protons and two neutrons, so it was written as (2,4).

A positron e carried one unit of positive charge, making it equivalent to a proton, and was therefore written as (1,0). (Only the notation was the same; their natures were different.)

n represented a neutron, so its proton number was 0.

In words, the equations above meant:

After one helium He4 atomic nucleus collided with one aluminum Al27 atomic nucleus, it first produced a phosphorus P30 atomic nucleus.

Phosphorus P30 was a radioactive isotope of phosphorus, so as soon as it formed, it became radioactive. After emitting a positron, it turned into silicon Si30.

This was the principle behind the Artificial Radioactivity first discovered by Irène.

With the concept of nuclear reactions in place, everything became clear and simple, as though one were merely balancing a chemical equation.

But in this era, the difficulty involved was still enormous.

At this point, some