"Boom" was a bad imagery perhaps given the prevalence of nuclear weapons in the common thought, but not misplaced given the generality of the discussion - in th

"Boom" was a bad imagery perhaps given the prevalence of nuclear weapons in the common thought, but not misplaced given the generality of the discussion - in this instance, I meant an interesting event consisting at least of a sudden spike in neutron flux and heat production. A "reactor" in this instance referred to an assemblage of nuclear material and neutron moderator to create sustainable chain reaction. Without the cooling tanks and pumps required for power generation, or the compression mechanism required for a fission bomb. If you assemble a particular configuration of nuclear material it will go super critical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident What happens when the neutron flux increases depends on the circumstances. As another commenter pointed out, even this can be lethal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core