 Weak nuclear forces provide the potential energy for certain kinds of radioactive decay, such as beta decay.Nuclear particles like protons and neutrons are not destroyed in fission and fusion processes, but collections of them can have less mass than if they were individually free, in which case this mass difference can be liberated as heat and radiation in nuclear reactions (the heat and radiation have the missing mass, but it often escapes from the system, where it is not measured).The energy from the Sun is an example of this form of energy conversion.