In the early days of the nuclear business, people struggled to understand how often a U-235 nucleus would split apart and how often it would not. Eventually, they found that the best way for the...

In the early days of the nuclear business, people struggled to understand how often a U-235 nucleus would split apart and how often it would not. Eventually, they found that the best way for the nucleus to split apart was for it to absorb a thermal neutron. Using the values for the ssion and capture cross sections that we presented in Chapter 5, estimate the probability that a thermal neutron will cause a U-235 nucleus to split apart. If the nucleus happens to absorb a fast neutron, is the probability of the nucleus splitting apart exactly the same?