American chemist William Draper Harkins was the first to propose the concept of nuclear fusion in 1915. Then in 1921, Arthur Eddington suggested hydrogen–helium fusion could be the primary source of stellar energy. Reprinted in: Reprinted in: Quantum tunneling was discovered by Friedrich Hund in 1927,Tunnelling was independently observed by Soviet scientists Grigory Samuilovich Landsberg and Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam. See: and shortly afterwards Robert Atkinson and Fritz Houtermans used the measured masses of light elements to demonstrate that large amounts of energy could be released by fusing small nuclei. Building on the early experiments in artificial nuclear transmutation by Patrick Blackett, laboratory fusion of hydrogen isotopes was accomplished by Mark Oliphant in 1932. In the remainder of that decade, the theory of the main cycle of nuclear fusion in stars was worked out by Hans Bethe.
American chemist William Draper Harkins was the first to propose the concept of nuclear fusion in 1915. Then in 1921, Arthur Eddington suggested hydrogen–helium fusion could be the primary source of stellar energy. Reprinted in: Reprinted in: Quantum tunneling was discovered by Friedrich Hund in 1927,Tunnelling was independently observed by Soviet scientists Grigory Samuilovich Landsberg and Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam See: and shortly afterwards Robert Atkinson and Fritz Houtermans used the measured masses of light elements t.o demonstrate that large amounts of energy could be released by fusing small nuclei. Building on the early experiments in artificial nuclear transmutation by Patrick Blackett, laboratory fusion of hydrogen isotopes was accomplished by Mark Oliphant in 1932. In the remainder of that decade, the theory of the main cycle of nuclear fusion in stars was worked out by Hans Bethe.