this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

I was interested in whether this was accurate. I got a similar answer, but I know almost nothing about nuclear fission and math is not my strong suit. Here it is anyway:

The heat capacity of water is fairly linear. At normal atmospheric pressure, it's 4,200J/kg°C, which means a 300ml mug of water would take 1,260 joules to raise by 1°C and thus 75,600 joules to raise by 60°C.

Fission of a single atomic nucleus of U-235 releases an average of 3.2e-11 joules (0.000000000032). To release 75,600 joules would presumably take fission of 2.3625e+15 atoms (2,362,500,000,000,000 -- two quadrillion three hundred sixty-two trillion five hundred billion).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You uh definitely at least took a heat transfer class in college or you wouldn't know what to do with all this stuff. Hell, I took one 10 years ago, and I barely know what to do with this information anymore. Kudos to you for doing the napkin math

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Nah, just read into it a little and then forgot it afterwards! The first link -- the old Reddit thread -- was quite helpful.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

Considering it was 250 ml by 60 C, looks bang on.