Encyclopedia > Chain reaction

  Article Content

Chain reaction

A chain reaction is a reaction in which one of the agents necessary to the reaction is itself produced by the reaction, thus causing additional reactions.

Examples:

  • The neutron-fission chain reaction, a neutron plus a fissionable atom causes a fission resulting in a number of neutrons which in turn cause other fissions.
  • Chemical chain reactions, where large molecules (e.g., plastic polymers, nucleic acids) are products.

See also: nuclear chain reaction, polymerase chain reaction



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Great River, New York

... census of 2000, there are 1,546 people, 509 households, and 417 families residing in the town. The population density is 129.8/km² (336.2/mi²). There are 519 ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 25 ms