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Criticality events don’t end up as massive explosions without careful design to keep the parts close enough for enough time to release the energy. Otherwise th
by slededit 8y ago
Criticality events don’t end up as massive explosions without careful design to keep the parts close enough for enough time to release the energy. Otherwise the force of the reaction will move the material away from each other and “snuff out” the reaction.
They can still release substantial amounts of radiation though, and one such event caused the death of Louis Slotin during the project.
- credit_guy 8y agoFair enough. Criticality accidents happen, and wikipedia has an entry [1], stating that there were at least 60 recorded cases causing 21 deaths. > They were literally lucky that it didn't cause an uncontrolled reaction. Well, they were literally lucky in this case and not so lucky in some other cases. Not the end of the world either way. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Recorded_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Recorded_...