Fission: The first 50 years

The possibility of fission had been largely unanticipated prior to its discovery in 1938. This process, with its dramatically large energy release and its formation of previously unknown nuclides, immediately captured the imagination of the scientific community. Both theoretical and experimental developments occurred at a rapid pace. I will begin my discussion of fission with the far-reaching paper of Bohr and Wheeler, who in little more than half a year laid out a framework for understanding many features of the fission process. I will then turn to our current understanding of a number of aspects of fission. One of these is the pronounced tendency of many nuclear species to fission asymmetrically. In fact, the discovery of fission was based on the identification of barium isotopes produced in asymmetric fission. The dramatic changes in the preferred mass division and kinetic energy release with the addition of only a few neutrons to the spontaneously fissioning Fermium isotopes will be emphasized. The problem of the dynamics of saddle to scission will be discussed---this is one aspect of fission for which we do not have all the answers. Another dynamical effect to be discussed is the apparent failure of transition state theory at high excitation energies. The role of single particle (shell) effects in enriching the structure if the potential energy surface will be explored. Spontaneously fissioning isomers and intermediate structure resonances will be discussed. The recognition that short-lived fission isomers are superdeformed shape isomers has been followed by the recent observation of superdeformed shape isomers in the rare earth region. 18 refs., 3 figs