Devices or installations where controlled nuclear reactions occur to generate power or produce isotopes. Also refers to vessels where controlled chemical reactions take place in industrial processes.
From Latin 'reactus', past participle of 'reagere' meaning 'to act back'. The nuclear sense developed in the 1940s during the Manhattan Project, extending from chemical reactor terminology.
The first nuclear reactor was built under the University of Chicago's football stadium in 1942, achieving humanity's first controlled nuclear chain reaction. Modern reactors are so efficient that a single uranium pellet the size of a fingertip contains as much energy as a ton of coal.
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