Fusion?? (latent heat of fusion)

DhruvKumar

What is fusion?
What I know that is fusion is the process of joining of nuclei by melting.Thus , fusion is a melting process.
Can i get some more information in easy language.
I have read some-were "fusion is a freezing process" is this statement is true by any point of view.

HallsofIvy

I started to write an an answer until I realize that I don't know what kind of "fusion" you mean here! Yes, "chemical fusion", fusing two metals such as silver and gold, is just a matter of heating the metals enough that the chemical bonds, due to the outer electron shells, holding the metal crystals together break and the atoms from the two different metals can mix- although there will not be a true chemical bond between the atoms of the different metals.

Nuclear fusion is a completely different thing!

DhruvKumar

This fusion of which i am talking about is of Heat chapter.

berkeman

Can you post some links to what you are asking about? It is still not clear. Is there a Wikipedia.org page that discusses it?

Or maybe a page at Hyperphysics? http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hphys.html

.

K^2

He's talking about latent heat of fusion. It has nothing to do with nuclear fusion.

When an object goes from liquid to solid state, it "fuses", and releases the fusion energy. In order to melt an object, you have to supply fusion energy. In this process, neither nuclei nor atoms really fuse. The only thing that changes is the state of matter. You can think of it as change of arrangement of atoms or molecules between somewhat sparse and random (liquid) and tight and ordered (solid). There are other, more complex transitions that are possible, but these are the basics.

berkeman

Thanks K^2. I added your clarification to the thread title.