Splitting atoms was credited to the works of Otto Hahn (1879-1968 ) and Lise Meitner (1878-1968 ). Technically, this nuclear process is known as fission, which is a part of the study of physics. However, both Hahn and Meitner were chemists and only Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1944, regarded by many people who knew them as a serious injustice to Meitner for her not sharing the Nobel Prize for this discovery. Coincidentally, the easiest atoms to split happen to be the heaviest naturally occurring uranium atoms. Moreover, uranium atoms are also naturally radioactive with three naturally occurring radioisotopes: U-238, U-235, and U-234. Their respective abundance on planet Earth is 99.28%, 0.71%, and 0.006%. However, U-235 is easily fissionable while U-238 is a source for the production of fissionable plutonium by slow neutrons irradiation of U-238 producing Pu-239 with a half-life of 82 million years.

One particular fission reaction of U-235 by slow neutrons bombardments is given as ��+��→����+����+3��. The energy released is approximately 0.000 000 000 03 joules per U-235 nucleus. However, for 1 kilogram of purified U-235, the energy released is approximately 20 000 megawatt-hours equivalent to the amount of energy produced by the combustion of 3 millions tones of coal. For this economic reason and throwing the dangerous idea of harmful effect of radioactivity to the wind, there exist many nuclear electric power plants around the civilized world. Still, for the U. S. alone, from 2005 statistics, the energy utilized from splitting atoms only account for 8% of all U. S. energy derived from other sources. The leading utility is dominated by fossil fuels at 86% and leaving only 6% for renewable sources. The 86% of fossil fuels is broken down into 40% for petroleum, 23% for coal, 22% for natural gas, and 1% for other derivatives.