critical mass

noun
1.
Physics. the amount of a given fissionable material necessary to sustain a chain reaction at a constant rate.
2.
an amount necessary or sufficient to have a significant effect or to achieve a result:
a critical mass of popular support.
Origin
1940-45
British Dictionary definitions for critical mass

critical mass

noun
1.
the minimum mass of fissionable material that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction
2.
the minimum amount of money or number of people required to start or sustain an operation, business, process, etc: the critical mass for a subscription digital sports channel
critical mass in Science
critical mass

  1. The smallest mass of a fissionable material that will sustain a nuclear chain reaction.

  2. The amount of matter needed to generate sufficient gravitational force to halt the current expansion of the universe. See also big bang, big crunch.


critical mass in Culture

critical mass definition


In physics, the amount of material that must be present before a chain reaction can sustain itself.

Note: The term critical mass is used to refer generally to the minimum amount of something needed to produce a given effect: “The town needs a critical mass of industry to attract more business.”
critical mass in Technology


In physics, the minimum amount of fissionable material required to sustain a chain reaction. Of a software product, describes a condition of the software such that fixing one bug introduces one plus epsilon bugs. (This malady has many causes: creeping featurism, ports to too many disparate environments, poor initial design, etc.) When software achieves critical mass, it can never be fixed; it can only be discarded and rewritten.
[Jargon File]
(1994-12-23)