Hi all,

So, I know polonium emits neutrons at a constant rate in its default state (initial tmp=0), irrespective of temperature or pressure, until it reaches tmp=5 and becomes inert.  However, I've noticed that if the initial tmp is set to negative values the rate of neutron emission is next to nothing--*unless* the polonium is subjected to a prolonged burst of neutrons, in which case the rate of neutron production can jump quite high.

My intuition is--and this has been strengthed by a comment on a polonium reactor post--that neutron production isn't constant, it's driven by tmp, and the higher the tmp, the higher the rate of neutron production.  Since interacting with a neutron can also raise the tmp of polonium, you end up with a situation where even though polonium isn't fissile in the traditional sense, it can still generate and sustain a fission-like chain reaction.

Thus, my question is, am I understanding its behavior correctly? The wiki doesn't say, and I unfortunately don't know Lua well enough  (I'm a Python girl, natch) to be able to determine this just from looking at the source code.

Thanks!

Ah, that explains it! Thank you kindly!

And, ehhh, C++, Lua, what's the difference :-P