Topics of Interest

Nuclear energy is the energy of atoms. Learning about atoms—what they are, what they are made of, and how they behave—is a great way to start understanding nuclear energy.

You may have heard about atoms before. What you heard was probably a simplified explanation that doesn't quite match reality. In this course, we will review what you may already know. And then we will go further and explore some of the interesting things that atoms can do.

We are going to explore lots of ways to think about atoms. We are going to look at atoms from different perspectives so that you walk away with a solid grasp of how they work and what they can do. That will help later when we dig into other concepts, such as how atoms split or combine in nuclear reactions.

Humanity has been tinkering with the steam engine for hundreds of years. In 1698, Thomas Savery, an English engineer, patented the first commercial steam-powered device for removing water from flooded mines.

Since then, through experimentation, pain-staking trial and error, and a bit of deep thinking, we have figured out the physics of heat energy, along with many effective ways of turning heat energy into useful work.

This introductory course explains the laws of thermodynamics, describes how water turns heat into work, and dives into the properties of water under pressure. These topics are directly related to using nuclear energy for power generation.