Define a "nuclear partition" to be an integer partition with no part equal to one. In this study we prove a simple formula to compute the partition function $p(n)$ by counting only the nuclear partitions of $n$, a vanishingly small subset by comparison with all partitions of $n$ as $n\to \infty$. Variations on the proof yield other formulas for $p(n)$, as well as Ramanujan-like congruences and an application to parity of the partition function.