Chain reaction
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This article is about chain reactions in chemistry and physics. For other uses, see Chain reaction (disambiguation).
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. It is a self-amplifying chain of events.
- The neutron-fission chain reaction: a neutron plus a fissionable atom causes a fission resulting in a larger number of neutrons than was consumed in the initial reaction.
- Chemical reactions, where a product of a reaction is itself a reactive particle which can cause more similar reactions. For example, every step of H2 + Cl2 chain reaction consumes one molecule of H2 or Cl2, one free radical H· or Cl· producing one HCl molecule and another free radical.
- Electron avalanche process: Collisions of free electrons in a strong electric field forming "new" electrons to undergo the same process in successive cycles.
- In linguistics, language change is seen as the gradual outcome of chain reactions and subject to cyclic drift.[1]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Henri Wittmann (1983). "Les réactions en chaîne en morphologie diachronique." Actes du Colloque de la Société internationale de linguistique fonctionnelle 10.285-92.[1]
[edit] See also
- Nuclear chain reaction
- Polymerase chain reaction
- Markov chain
- Rube Goldberg machine
- Causality
- Butterfly effect
- Thermal runaway
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