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People walk around with a loaded gun in their pants. They just (usually) carefully manage not to pull the trigger. Would it be better to walk down the hall twi
by avidiax 4y ago
People walk around with a loaded gun in their pants. They just (usually) carefully manage not to pull the trigger.
Would it be better to walk down the hall twice? Slightly, sure. Turns out it wouldn't have made a difference that we know of.
- tomxor 4y agoWhat if two people walk down the hall doing the same thing in different directions? ... Oh I forgot my slide rule ... !#FLASH#! ... what was that!? Oh shit. Half joking. Is the material and spatial separation of a lab coat enough to prevent a reaction between two lumps of plutonium of sufficient combined critical mass? It might be since it's so bad at penetrating anything solid, but I don't know.
- eximius 4y agoConsidering the original demon cores were held apart by a screw driver, the answer is technically yes. It's still a horrifyingly unsafe thing to do. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core#/media/File:Tickling_the_Dragons_Tail.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core#/media/File:Ticklin...
- kennethrc 4y agoThe Hollywood version of events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ0P7R9CfCY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ0P7R9CfCY
- earlyam 4y agoFurther reading: https://www.science.org/content/article/near-disaster-federal-nuclear-weapons-laboratory-takes-hidden-toll-america-s-arsenal https://www.science.org/content/article/near-disaster-federa...
- closewith 4y agoTechnically, it was the neutron reflecting sphere was was held apart by a screwdriver.
- bombcar 4y agoRemember the demon core thing happened more than once, too.
- raverbashing 4y agoGood thinking. One of the things modern "computing practices" taught us is the myriad of ways things can go wrong, they were probably a bit more naive at that time It's Murphy's law squared
- slackdog 4y ago> It might be since it's so bad at penetrating anything solid This isn't the case! Plutonium 239 is relatively safe, merely an alpha emitter which is what you're talking about. But that isn't where the danger comes from. The danger comes from the Plutonium 240, which is present as a contaminant in all plutonium weapons cores. Plutonium 240 spontaneously undergoes fission, releasing neutron radiation which is very penetrating. If you bring two halves of a core together, neutrons from the spontaneous fusion of Pu-240 can cause a chain reaction; this is the reason gun-type bombs don't work with Plutonium cores; they give off too much neutron radiation and would react prematurely if you tried to build a Plutonium bomb like that.
- tomxor 4y agoAh, so purely a matter of separation in the case of a lab coat.
- pengaru 4y ago> Is the material and spatial separation of a lab coat enough to prevent a reaction between two lumps of plutonium of sufficient combined critical mass? Inverse-square law [0][1] applies... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law [1] https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Inverse_square_law https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Inverse_square_law
- atoav 4y agoThis would be something out of an Gary Larson comic.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bagels 4y agoWhat if he trips over something? It's unnecessarily risky, just like the guy who killed himself while showing off separating cores with a screwdriver.
- ceejayoz 4y agoGuns don't tend to go off just by the mere presence of another unexpected gun nearby, though.
- Aeolun 4y agoThey do tend to go off if people finger the trigger though. Somehow I think it’s more likely people will fiddle with their loaded gun than with two halves of a nuclear bomb.
- ceejayoz 4y ago> I’d put this half in a pocket on this side and this half in a pocket on this side and walk down the hall. I'm inclined to see that as uncomfortably close to fingering the trigger.
- HelloNurse 4y agoWith one half in the pocket and the other in hand (while it's being placed into the "safe" other pocket) nothing prevents the latter from going unintendedly close the first.
- ceejayoz 4y agoYep. Or you trip and fall, they spill out of your pockets, and someone helpfully fetches them for you.
- bentobean 4y ago[flagged]
- jjeaff 4y agoInterestingly, some accounts of the yet to be fully released FBI report on the gun in question state that the FBI investigators caused the weapon to fire without pulling the trigger because the gun was in such poor condition, that one of the times when they pulled back the hammer, some part of the gun broke and it fired. Apparently, it was in such poor condition that the gun did NOT fire on some of their attempts even when they actually did pull the trigger. So their public statements so far are that the gun was not possible to fire without pulling the trigger -- as long as all the parts were intact (which they were not by the end of testing.)
- rasz 4y agoImagine this person bumping into anther such idiot with pockets full of plutonium.
- incone123 4y agoI pictured them leaving work and going to play billiards with it still in their pockets. (Just letting my mind wander - I realise using plutonium as a cue ball is very unlikely)