3. Reactor kinetics

We saw in the first chapter that the neutron population in a system is multiplied by a factor k from one generation to the next, which suggests exponential behavior as a function of time: population multiplied by k ⁿ after n generations. In this paragraph, we propose to examine this law: on the one hand, we need to quantify the duration of a generation and, on the other, to specify the mathematical law of evolution, which obviously has a continuous character as a function of time t.