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The European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) believes that chaos theory
could make nuclear or chemical reactors safer (W0 98/55220). Euratom warns that
runaway events may go undetected because existing detection systems are
overcomplex: they try to measure too many parameters, such as pressure,
pH and viscosity, and then predict what their changes may mean. Their new
system uses only temperature measurements but takes them from points all over
the reactor jacket. Chaos theory is then used to track the pattern and rate of
heat change throughout the reactor, and sound an alarm when the temperature
pattern exceeds preset threshold.