In an atomic explosion, release of large amount of energy is due to conversion of

In an atomic explosion, the release of a massive amount of energy is fundamentally due to the conversion of mass into energy, governed by Albert Einstein's mass-energy equivalence principle, E=mc². During nuclear reactions such as fission or fusion, the total mass of the resulting products is slightly less than the mass of the original reactants. This difference, known as the 'mass defect,' is converted into a tremendous amount of energy because the conversion factor (the square of the speed of light) is extremely large. While this energy eventually manifests as heat and radiation, the primary source of the explosion's power is the direct transformation of this missing mass into pure energy. This process differs from chemical reactions where energy is released from electron bonds without significant mass changes.