3 ms·
Scientists call it “tickling the dragon’s tail," Custer said, because the experiment approaches but stays below the stage at which the fission of nuclear materi
by tpmx 3y ago
Scientists call it “tickling the dragon’s tail," Custer said, because the experiment approaches but stays below the stage at which the fission of nuclear materials sustains an ongoing series of chain reactions.
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core Feynman was the person behind that expression.
Scientists referred to this flirting with the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction as "tickling the dragon's tail", based on a remark by physicist Richard Feynman, who compared the experiments to "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon".
- nico 3y agoFrom the Wikipedia article: > The demon core was a sphere of plutonium that was involved in two fatal radiation accidents when scientists tested it as a fissile core of an early atomic bomb > In both cases, an experiment was intended to demonstrate how close the core was to criticality with a tamper, but the core was accidentally put into a critical configuration That doesn’t sound very reassuring
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tpmx 3y agoYou'd imagine they have a learned a bit since then. And it's underground.