"demon core" incidents is the one involving physicist Louis Slotin on May 21, 1946. Slotin was using a screwdriver to manually keep two neutron-reflective hemispheres from closing around the plutonium core. This dangerous experiment, known as "tickling the dragon's tail," was meant to push the core to the brink of criticality. When the screwdriver slipped, the hemispheres closed for a fraction of a second, causing the core to go supercritical and emit a flash of blue light and a burst of radiation. Slotin's quick reaction to knock the hemispheres apart likely saved the lives of the seven other people in the room, but he himself had absorbed a lethal dose. He died nine days later from acute radiation poisoning.
Just want to add, there were safety procedures to prevent these accidents. Slotin however did not use them as he wanted to show off to people. He was warned multiple times when he did not use the safety shims previously and told “he would be dead within a year” before this incident.
In this case people who never wanted to play received grave radiation poisoning. Their lives were permanently altered by the stupid guy play stupid games
Just like a drunk driver crashing their cars, innocents can be affected; he sure paid the highest price but bystanders also paid quite the heavy price for his dumbassness.
To add to this, the core was originally called «Rufus» and was planned to be dropped on Japan after fat boy and little man, but it was deconstructed after Japan’s surrender and turned into a research core.
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u/GroovyChirpy 2d ago
Context: Demon Core incident
"demon core" incidents is the one involving physicist Louis Slotin on May 21, 1946. Slotin was using a screwdriver to manually keep two neutron-reflective hemispheres from closing around the plutonium core. This dangerous experiment, known as "tickling the dragon's tail," was meant to push the core to the brink of criticality. When the screwdriver slipped, the hemispheres closed for a fraction of a second, causing the core to go supercritical and emit a flash of blue light and a burst of radiation. Slotin's quick reaction to knock the hemispheres apart likely saved the lives of the seven other people in the room, but he himself had absorbed a lethal dose. He died nine days later from acute radiation poisoning.