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What about the "demon core?" It was a core of highly radioactive material, and instead of bricks, there were two hollowed out hemispheres made of some metal th
by joncrane 5y ago
What about the "demon core?" It was a core of highly radioactive material, and instead of bricks, there were two hollowed out hemispheres made of some metal that reflected the radioactivity. Some guy put one hemisphere below the core, and had another one on top AND WAS USING A SCREWDRIVER to carefully titrate how "closed" the top hemisphere was to the bottom one. His hand slipped and he killed himself and some colleagues.
Apparently the "demon core" got its name because it was involved in more than one supercritical accident.
- Buttons840 5y agoI think the demon core was the "chunk of uranium" they were stacking bricks around. It's been several years since I read the book so my memory is fuzzy. I think the later experiments used the metal hemispheres instead of bricks.
- Buttons840 5y ago"The core was placed within a stack of neutron-reflective tungsten carbide bricks and the addition of each brick moved the assembly closer to criticality. While attempting to stack another brick around the assembly, Daghlian accidentally dropped it onto the core and thereby caused the core to go well into supercriticality, a self-sustaining critical chain reaction. He quickly moved the brick off the assembly, but received a fatal dose of radiation. He died 25 days later from acute radiation poisoning." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core The Wikipedia page describes the 2nd accident as well, involving a screwdriver and metal hemispheres.