Nuclear reaction Common light particles are often abbreviated in this shorthand, typically p for proton, n for neutron, d for deuteron, α representing an alpha particle or helium-4, β for beta particle or electron, γ for gamma photon, etc. The reaction above would be written as Li-6(d,α)α. In 1919, Ernest Rutherford was able to accomplish transmutation of nitrogen into oxygen at the University of Manchester, using alpha particles directed at nitrogen N + α → O + p. This was the first observation of an induced nuclear reaction, that is, a reaction in which particles from one decay are used to transform
History of nuclear weapons alpha particles; Enrico Fermi reported similar results when bombarding uranium with neutrons. In December 1938, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann sent a manuscript to "Naturwissenschaften" reporting that they had detected the element barium after bombarding uranium with neutrons. Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch correctly interpreted these results as being due to the splitting of the uranium atom. (Frisch confirmed this experimentally on January 13, 1939.) They gave the process the name "fission" because of its similarity to the splitting of a cell into two new cells. Even before it was published, news of Meitner’s and Frisch’s interpretation