binding energy
Noun
Meaning
the energy required to separate particles from a molecule or atom or nucleus; equals the mass defect
Source: WordNetSynonyms
Hypernyms
Examples
I'm looking for the binding energy of a look a crop of reflections to be reaped in a winter of thorn when icebergs of illusion will melt to be served at high tea and the spaces between the poles pinned down.
A binding energy suggests two or more particles or other entities that are bound together in the superconducting state.
Before nucleosynthesis began, the temperature was high enough for many photons to have energy greater than the binding energy of deuterium; therefore any deuterium that was formed was immediately destroyed (a situation known as the deuterium bottleneck).
Almost all neutrons that fused instead of decaying ended up combined into helium-4, due to the fact that helium-4 has the highest binding energy per nucleon among light elements.
Eventually, the binding energy becomes negative and very heavy nuclei (all with more than 208 nucleons, corresponding to a diameter of about 6 nucleons) are not stable.
Baade and Zwicky correctly proposed at that time that the release of the gravitational binding energy of the neutron stars powers the supernova: "In the supernova process, mass in bulk is annihilated".