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Asked in CBSE AIPMT 2005 · Binding energy curve and nuclear force
The binding-energy-per-nucleon curve peaks around A≈56 and falls away slowly beyond it.
So a heavy nucleus is less tightly bound per nucleon than the middle-weight fragments it could split into.
Splitting it moves every nucleon to a more tightly bound state, and the surplus binding energy is released.
This is possible only because the curve decreases with mass number at high mass numbers.
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