Chain reaction

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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]

Notes

See also

• Nuclear chain reaction
• Polymerase chain reaction
• Markov chain
• Rube Goldberg machine
• Causality
• Butterfly effect
• Thermal runawayar:تفاعل تسلسلي

ca:Reacció en cadena cs:Řetězová reakce de:Kettenreaktionfr:Réaction en chaîne mk:Верижна реакција nl:Kettingreactiesk:Reťazová reakcia sr:Ланчана реакција sv:Kedjereaktion uk:Ланцюгова реакція

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Some of the initial content on this page may be incorporated in part from copyleft sources in the public domain including wikis such as Wikipedia and AskDrWiki. Drug information for patients came from the The National Library of Medicine. Infectious disease information may have come from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Differential Diagnoses are drawn from clinicians as well as an amalgamation of 3 sources: 1.The Disease Database; 2. Kahan, Scott, Smith, Ellen G. In A Page: Signs and Symptoms. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2004:3; 3. Sailer, Christian, Wasner, Susanne. Differential Diagnosis Pocket. Hermosa Beach, CA: Borm Bruckmeir Publishing LLC, 2002:7 .