Nuclear fission: What have we learned in 50 years?

Nuclear fission has captured the imagination of chemists and physicists for half a century now. There are several reasons for this. One of course is that it represents the most drastic rearrangement of nuclear matter known, challenged only recently by collisions induced by very heavy ions. Another is that both statistical and dynamical features come into play. Perhaps one of the most compelling reasons is its never-ending capacity to surprise us: asymmetric mass distributions, the sawtooth dependence of neutron yields in fragment mass, spontaneously fissioning isomers and intermediate structure resonances. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, fission is a rich laboratory within which one can explore the delicate interplay between the macroscopic aspects of bulk nuclear matter and the quantal effects of a finite number of Fermions. It will of course be impossible for me to cover all aspects of fission. I have chosen a limited number of topics to cover, with particular topics being chosen either because the have been associated with persistent puzzles in fission or because they have, or hopefully will, tell us something special about how nuclei behave. After a brief historical note, I organize these topics sequentially according to the various stages of the fission process, starting first with the probability for fission to occur and ending with scission phenomena. 56 refs., 11 figs