ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

James Rainwater

James Rainwater was a very smart man who studied atoms and how they work. Imagine an atom as a tiny ball that has smaller balls called protons and neutrons inside of it. These protons and neutrons stick together in a tight group, kind of like a tight huddle. Imagine that you want to throw something through that huddle, like a football. Normally, it would bounce right back at you like a mirror.

But James Rainwater discovered something very important – sometimes, if you throw the ball at just the right angle and with just the right speed, it might sneak through the huddle and hit something on the other side. This happens because the balls inside the huddle aren't perfectly solid – they're a little squishy, kind of like a bouncy ball.

This discovery was really important because it helped us understand better how atoms work and how energy is produced. It took a lot of really smart people to figure it out, but James Rainwater was one of the best!