5 ms·

Having grown up in the 80s, when Spider-Man's superpowers were attributed to a radiactive spider rather than the modern day genetically engineered spider, in th

Having grown up in the 80s, when Spider-Man's superpowers were attributed to a radiactive spider rather than the modern day genetically engineered spider, in the latter days that prospect of nuclear war with the Soviet Union was discussed as a possibility, radiation holds a special place in my heart. Criticality accidents are my favorite type of disaster. For a time I was led by a morbidly curiosity to research these incidents. Reading these, I sure am glad I picked a career that's much safer than being a nuclear scientist! Eyestrain and standing around all day is definitely preferable to a job where if you move two pieces of metal together too quickly, you might see a blue flash, feel a sensation of pins and needle sticking you in the face and mouth, start vomiting and die two days later. The article mentions the Demon Core, definitely a classic. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core Los Alamos has put together a couple of documents describing each known incident. I find it fascinating to follow exactly how each miniature disaster occurred. It's surprising, sort of, how dangerous these materials are and it seems that certainly, one needs to take great care when reflecting neutrons. https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf https://www.orau.org/ptp/Library/accidents/la-13638.pdf [PDF] and an older one... http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?00314607.pdf http://library.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/getfile?00314607.pdf [PDF]

hga 12y ago
Initially I was going to say you're overstating the danger, but first I went to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Incidents Note the first one, where the system went critical simply because the scientist leaned too closely to it and neutrons bounced off his body. Only his alertness to some red indicator lamps and resulting quick action saved him, vs. the 1st to die of this who in theory could have taken corrective action before getting a fatal dose. Then again past a certain point almost all of these resulted from violating rules. Note from one of his autobiographies how Feynman was prepped to really get the attention of the people running stuff at Oak Ridge I think it was if he realized they'd created a system that might result in a criticality accident. Ah, and there's this big difference: I grew up a couple of decades earlier than us, and still have my mother's Civil Defense Block Mother sign from the late '60s. Back then the madness of MAD hadn't completely taken over and if you were interested, the government was happy to train about how to survive a nuclear war, which really isn't difficult at all if you're outside the immediate effects range. So to me radiation is to be respected, but it's an understood and mitigateble danger. I'd rather work in this field than in a university synthetic chemistry lab (one possible direction I could have gone if $$$ hadn't prevented me from getting my undergraduate degree). Staying safe there requires tremendously more knowledge of a fantastically more complicated field, resisting too much pressure to work when you're tired, and trusting the others in the lab not to screw up too badly.
- hga 12y ago
  An addendum of sorts to my last point. A friend I forwarded this to took umbridge at blaming the smoke-pot explosion on the supervisor(s). So I looked at it more closely and here's an edited version of the reply: Actually, if you go to the official document, pg. 13-4, it's not that bad: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/1947-Exhibit-14-from-Los-Alamos-Project-Y-Book-II.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/19... Especially since I have high school experience with potassium chlorate, a dangerous oxidizer. E.g. I used classic chlorate and sugar plus nichrome igniter wire plus my second generation rocket launcher device (both versions having a physical key lockout, didn't trust my younger brothers) to do some neat 4th of July fireworks stuff. E.g. add a small "bomb" of chlorate and sugar to the igniter packet taped to the inside of one half of a cinderblock, then arrange a gross of bottle rockets in that, and you can get an amazing display due to the significant variations in their fuzing. Oh, BTW, this was done in the middle of our lakes ^_^. In all this I somehow never managed to burn myself. Anyway, they mixed up their own witches brew to make the smudge pots, and looking at the ingredients it's no surprise it exploded, and now looking up smoke screen making on Wikipedia, you use either potassium chlorate or if using phosphorous, atmospheric oxygen or much tamer aluminum as oxidizers (the latter for IR proof smoke), not both. Magnesium turnings are right out. I.e. I had a better knowledge of chemistry and safety in high school than these guys did. Reading between the lines they were clearly doing it this way to have some fun as opposed getting the job done, in an area where you almost certainly want to avoid random fires. So, yeah, they should have been better supervised, access to these chemicals should have been better controlled (i.e. a good clerk would have raised an eyebrow if they tried to withdraw any single one of these chemicals except of course the sugar, and any of the combinations...), and critically "no disciplinary action could be taken." I agree with every one of the recommendations. And disciplinary action was almost certainly not needed, those who were held at a degree of fault realized they'd let these "kids" kill or blind themselves.
gd1 12y ago
>Eyestrain and standing around all day is definitely preferable to a job where ... start vomiting and die two days later. I too share your fascination with the nuclear incidents, but I felt that the takeaway point of the article was that our fascination is entirely disproportionate. As cool as the 'demon core' is, you can just as easily die driving a bulldozer or digging a trench. Perhaps our excitement and enthusiasm leads indirectly to the generally disproportionate fear that the general public have of anything linked to radiation or nuclear physics.

hga 12y ago

Initially I was going to say you're overstating the danger, but first I went to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident#Incidents Note the first one, where the system went critical simply because the scientist leaned too closely to it and neutrons bounced off his body. Only his alertness to some red indicator lamps and resulting quick action saved him, vs. the 1st to die of this who in theory could have taken corrective action before getting a fatal dose. Then again past a certain point almost all of these resulted from violating rules. Note from one of his autobiographies how Feynman was prepped to really get the attention of the people running stuff at Oak Ridge I think it was if he realized they'd created a system that might result in a criticality accident. Ah, and there's this big difference: I grew up a couple of decades earlier than us, and still have my mother's Civil Defense Block Mother sign from the late '60s. Back then the madness of MAD hadn't completely taken over and if you were interested, the government was happy to train about how to survive a nuclear war, which really isn't difficult at all if you're outside the immediate effects range. So to me radiation is to be respected, but it's an understood and mitigateble danger. I'd rather work in this field than in a university synthetic chemistry lab (one possible direction I could have gone if $$$ hadn't prevented me from getting my undergraduate degree). Staying safe there requires tremendously more knowledge of a fantastically more complicated field, resisting too much pressure to work when you're tired, and trusting the others in the lab not to screw up too badly.

hga 12y ago
An addendum of sorts to my last point. A friend I forwarded this to took umbridge at blaming the smoke-pot explosion on the supervisor(s). So I looked at it more closely and here's an edited version of the reply: Actually, if you go to the official document, pg. 13-4, it's not that bad: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/1947-Exhibit-14-from-Los-Alamos-Project-Y-Book-II.pdf http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/19... Especially since I have high school experience with potassium chlorate, a dangerous oxidizer. E.g. I used classic chlorate and sugar plus nichrome igniter wire plus my second generation rocket launcher device (both versions having a physical key lockout, didn't trust my younger brothers) to do some neat 4th of July fireworks stuff. E.g. add a small "bomb" of chlorate and sugar to the igniter packet taped to the inside of one half of a cinderblock, then arrange a gross of bottle rockets in that, and you can get an amazing display due to the significant variations in their fuzing. Oh, BTW, this was done in the middle of our lakes ^_^. In all this I somehow never managed to burn myself. Anyway, they mixed up their own witches brew to make the smudge pots, and looking at the ingredients it's no surprise it exploded, and now looking up smoke screen making on Wikipedia, you use either potassium chlorate or if using phosphorous, atmospheric oxygen or much tamer aluminum as oxidizers (the latter for IR proof smoke), not both. Magnesium turnings are right out. I.e. I had a better knowledge of chemistry and safety in high school than these guys did. Reading between the lines they were clearly doing it this way to have some fun as opposed getting the job done, in an area where you almost certainly want to avoid random fires. So, yeah, they should have been better supervised, access to these chemicals should have been better controlled (i.e. a good clerk would have raised an eyebrow if they tried to withdraw any single one of these chemicals except of course the sugar, and any of the combinations...), and critically "no disciplinary action could be taken." I agree with every one of the recommendations. And disciplinary action was almost certainly not needed, those who were held at a degree of fault realized they'd let these "kids" kill or blind themselves.

gd1 12y ago

>Eyestrain and standing around all day is definitely preferable to a job where ... start vomiting and die two days later. I too share your fascination with the nuclear incidents, but I felt that the takeaway point of the article was that our fascination is entirely disproportionate. As cool as the 'demon core' is, you can just as easily die driving a bulldozer or digging a trench. Perhaps our excitement and enthusiasm leads indirectly to the generally disproportionate fear that the general public have of anything linked to radiation or nuclear physics.