Oversoul
The Tentacled One
Yeah, I think your professor was talking about nuclear fission and not just any splitting of an atom. There are probably much better examples, but the first one I thought of is astronomical. The very stars that often fuse large amounts of material into iron before they go supernova often form neutron stars, in which all the atoms are split and the protons and neutrons are forced together to form neutrons. If I remember correctly, much of this material would previously have been iron. Of course, that's not what most people (myself included) think of when it comes to "splitting an atom."
Does that work?
Does that work?