Nuclear Energy and Its Role in Daily Life

The history of nuclear energy is the story of the centuries-old dream of humankind. The ancient philosophers first developed the idea that all matter is composed of particles called the atom, which means indivisible. At the end of the 19th century, scientists experimented to discover radioactivity and X-rays. In the 1900s, physicists learned that the atom contained a huge amount of energy. Nuclear energy has attracted the attention of all segments of society in the process that started with this process and continued with the disintegration of the atom in 1934. Naturally, nuclear studies, which first started for military purposes, have become an integral part of our lives at every stage from energy to medical applications, from smoke detectors to sterilization of foods, from semiconductor technology to archaeological age determination. In this Chapter, we will give the description of the relationships and definitions the nuclear structure, nuclear radiation, alpha, beta particles and neutrons, gamma rays, and correlations and definitions of radioactivity. Then we explain fission and fusion. We will complete the chapter by giving nuclear energy and its applications in our daily lives.