Everyone is a gangster until the room glows blue
(midwest.social)
grumpy_cat
History Memes"Welcome to Jackass"
The phrase Louis Slotin used after he caused the accident was reportedly "Well, that does it." Haunting. He knew exactly what was going to happen to him.
The crazy thing is, it was only him who died of radiation poisoning. There were eight people in the room: four physicists, a student, a photographer, an engineer, and a security guard, ranging in age from 21 to 54. Only Slotin was killed when the Demon Core went supercritical.
They're all dead today, of course; it happened in 1946. But while Slotin died nine days after the accident, the only other person who died within the next decade was the security guard: 21-year-old Patrick Joseph Cleary, who died four years later at age 25. But it wasn't plutonium that killed him, it was lead--as far as I can tell in the Battle of the Pusan Perimeter, shortly after the US entered the Korean War.
The others died-
- 19 years later, from a skiing accident (age 55)
- 55 years later, of natural causes (age 81)
- 19 years later, of leukemia (age 42)
- 29 years later, of a bacterial infection in his heart (age 83)
- 52 years later, of natural causes (age 88)
- 42 years later, of unknown causes (age 65)
Just remarkable that such an unbelievable amount of radiation could be emitted that one person would die almost immediately, but that everyone else would live long enough to be killed by war, accidents, sickness, or even natural causes.
Spacial radiation from point source reduces by square of distance, obstacles also increase your odds of survival. So just take cover/few meters away can be big deal for this case (his body worked as the cover to others too).
However, what really happens beyond critical acute radiation threshold is truely gruesome and utterly untreatable, so I wouldn't make light of such case in any way.
Definitely. And I'm sure even the nine who didn't die within the month were always wondering how the end was going to go. Was it going to really hurt, like it did Slotin? That question's just always gotta be in the back of your mind.
I've got some shocking news for you about not only the causes of leukemia but how long it can take to detect
Didnt the others have some sort of protection? One was behind some barrel or whatnot and the radiation "flew" above them. Or am i thinking about something else now...
You're not entirely wrong, though I don't know anything about a barrel. One of the physicists, Alvin Graves, was right behind Slotin, and thus blocked by Slotin's body from most of the exposure. The rest were significantly further away, with the next closest person, photographer Dwight Smith Young, almost two meters back. Which was, apparently, far enough to keep him safe and allow him to survive into his 80s.
I don't know science as well as I wish, but the distance may be the inverse square law in action.
I think that's at least part of it, if I remember correctly. I think there's also something in the fact that it was passing through air, which may partially absorb radiation...? But I'm not sure about that one.
Explanation?
If you are exposed to a ton of radiation really fast, it ionizes the water in your eyes, causing what is referred to as a “blue flash”. Basically if you see it, you’re going to die very painfully over the course of the next few hours.
JFC
Accurate.
Ty, fuck.
Using his own unapproved protocol, Slotin did not place any shims. The top half of the reflector was resting directly on the bottom half at one point, while 180 degrees from this point a gap was maintained by the blade of a flat-tipped screwdriver in Slotin's hand.
often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots
Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" if they continued performing the test in that manner.
On the day of the accident, Slotin's screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector…there was a flash of light; the core had become supercritical.
Slotin reportedly turned to his colleagues in the hushed room and famously uttered the remark, "Well, that does it."
Go look up the demon core on Wikipedia.
Just a chest xray.
We have this insanely dangerous and radioactive thing, and we need to move it somehow? Screwdriver goes brrrrr.
I assume everyone was wearing safety squints and flipflops.
They weren't moving it, they were lowering a reflector to bring it close to criticality without going supercritical. It's like playing Russian roulette, except the game is to squeeze the trigger on a fully loaded revolver until just before the hammer releases, and you're using a screwdriver to squeeze the trigger. Oh! And the pistol is actually a grenade.
Bang
"Well, that does it"
you have been kicked for team killing
now film me!
