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> "Immediately, all eight scientists in the room felt a wave of heat accompanied by a blue glow as the plutonium sphere vomited an invisible burst of gamma and
by shangxiao 12y ago
> "Immediately, all eight scientists in the room felt a wave of heat accompanied by a blue glow as the plutonium sphere vomited an invisible burst of gamma and neutron radiation into the room. As the lab's Geiger counter clicked hysterically, Louis used his bare hand to push the upper plutonium hemisphere off and onto the floor, which terminated the supercritical reaction moments after it began."
Nit pick: What you have described is the incorrect version in the movie "Fat Man and Little Boy". It was a knee-jerk reaction that stopped the supercritical reaction, and it was the beryllium outer sphere which was dropped, not the plutonium core.
Slotin was holding the top half of the beryllium sphere with his thumb which he immediately lifted up due to the intense heat.
- eltoozero 12y ago> which he immediately lifted up due to the intense heat. Had he not made this instinctive move, everyone present would have perished and the area would have remained deadly until some other poor soul came upon the tragedy to stop the reaction. The first-hand accounts of those present are in the thorough official report, which just happens to be collected in John Coster-Mullen's Atom Bombs book.
- gambiting 12y agoThere was a similar thing somewhere in Russia, I just can't find the link right now....when a scientist spilled some radioactive material, ran out, and then out of fear of prosecution came back to clean it up - died of radiation poisoning shortly after. Anyone remembers which accident was it?