Fucking why?

He was dumb

File: Slotin_Los_Alamos.jpg (18KB, 282x332px) Image search: [Google]

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>>8671544
hi, im louis slotin, and welcome to jackass.

>>8671544
They were trying to win a war and didn't have time to pussyfoot around. He held the core near his genitals for the test so he could protect his coworkers by absorbing the radiation with his enormous testicles.

People weren't faggots back then. Hence why more great things were achieved.

>>8672091

I accidently a fission reaction. Is this bad?

>>8672238
What would you have us achieve now?
Also, the fucking moron should have known better.

>>8672238
You should eat some cyanide, I'll be the control group

>>8672238
Allowing them to close completely could result in the instantaneous formation of a critical mass and a lethal power excursion. Under Slotin's unapproved protocol, the only thing preventing this was the blade of a standard straight screwdriver, manipulated by the scientist's other hand. Slotin, who was given to bravado, became the local expert, performing the test on almost a dozen occasions, often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots, in front of a roomful of observers. Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" if they continued performing it.[12] 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".[13][14]

On the day of the accident, Slotin's screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector, allowing the reflector to fall into place around the core. Instantly there was a flash of blue light and a wave of heat across Slotin's skin; the core had become supercritical, releasing an intense burst of neutron radiation estimated to have lasted about a half second.

>>8671544
>>8672302
I wonder what would have happened had he not flipped the reflector to the floor right away.

>>8671544
They're "believers."

>>8672302
If he was wearing protective gear, would he have had a better chance of survival?

>>8671544
Honestly, that is autism for you, 100%.

>>8672557
probably not

>>8672302
Why is neutron radiation so dangerous? How does it actually hurt you at the cellular level? Do your cells explode or something? Is it like a burn?

>>8672611
They literally destroy molecular bonds. You basically disintegrate. It's probably pretty similar to a burn.

>>8672611
At the cellular level, the bombardment your dna takes causes permanent damage. Your cells don't "explode" in some kind of exothermic reaction. It is like a burn, as heat is a component, but not in the sense that it burns your cells (though that can happen) like a candle flame will.

tl;dr cancer

>>8672611
It transmutes atoms at random, often with large releases of energy (which become sprays of ionized particles in the dense matter of the body, hence "ionizing radiation") in this process, at some later time due to radioactive decay, or when energetic neutrons bounce off atoms in the body.

Many isotopes will absorb (and be transmuted by) neutrons. Fissile isotopes like U-235 are famous for it, because they react in a way that releases additional neutrons, making a chain reaction possible, but many other more common isotopes will do something like spit out an energetic alpha particle.

>>8672611
>>8672621
They often do the most damage by knocking bits out of your genetic code

They're also tricky since they're uncharged they basically just sail through you until the have a direct impact with something important. Electrons, protons, and alpha particles tend to get stopped/decelererated by the intrinsic fields of atoms and molecular bonds so they have to be much higher energy to penetrate your skin and/or cell wall.

>>8672098
toppest of keks

best post should be first post

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>>8672091
Damn, this is critical kino!