In nuclear engineering, an assembly is prompt critical if for each nuclear fission event, one or more of the immediate or prompt neutrons released causes an additional fission event. This causes a rapid, exponential increase in the number of fission events. Prompt criticality is a special case of supercriticality.
Read more about Prompt Critical: Criticality, Critical Versus Prompt-critical, Nuclear Reactors, List of Accidental Prompt Critical Excursions, Nuclear Weapons
Famous quotes containing the words prompt and/or critical:
“Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants and to serve them one’s self, so as to have somewhat left to give, instead of being always prompt to grab?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Most critical writing is drivel and half of it is dishonest.... It is a short cut to oblivion, anyway. Thinking in terms of ideas destroys the power to think in terms of emotions and sensations.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)