Dennis Whyte

It's the underlying process that powers the universe.

So as the name implies, it fuses together or brings together two different elements, technically nuclei, that come together.

And if you can push them together close enough that you can trigger essentially a reaction, what happens is that the element typically changes.

So this means that you change from one chemical element to another element.

Underlying what this means is that you change the nuclear structure.

This rearrangement through equals MC squared releases large amounts of energy.

So fusion is the fusing together of lighter elements into heavier elements.

And when you go through it, you say, oh, look, so here are the initial elements, typically hydrogen.

And they had a particular mass, rest mass, which means just the mass with no kinetic energy.

And when you look at the product afterwards, it has less rest mass.

And so you go, well, how is that possible?

Because you have to keep mass.

But mass and energy are the same thing, which is what E equals MC squared means.

And the conversion of this comes into kinetic energy, namely energy that you can use in some way.

And that's what happens in the center of stars, right?

So fusion is literally the reason life is viable in the universe.

the elements are hydrogen that are coming together.

It goes through a process, which is probably gets a little bit too detailed, but it's a somewhat complex catalyzed process that happens in the center of stars.

But in the end, stars are big balls of hydrogen, which is the lightest, that's the simplest element, the lightest element, the most abundant element, most of the universe is hydrogen.

And it's essentially a sequence through which these processes occur that you end up with helium.