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The Demon Core (The Horror)
X ^ | 06/29/2025 | Yama

Posted on 06/29/2025 6:16:51 PM PDT by Az Joe

This harrowing incident on May 21, 1946, remains one of the most infamous accidents in the history of nuclear research, a fatal moment of human error and hubris known as the "demon core" incident.


TOPICS: History; Miscellaneous; Science
KEYWORDS: demon; nuclear; oops; paranoia; radiationtruth

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Louis Slotin, a brilliant Canadian physicist and Manhattan Project veteran, had taken part in some of the most sensitive atomic research of World War II. But by 1946, with the war over, Slotin was preparing to leave Los Alamos and return to academia.

First, though, he performed one last experiment, a criticality test on a 14-pound plutonium core, the same core previously involved in another fatal accident just months earlier.

Dubbed “tickling the dragon’s tail” by those who understood the danger, the experiment involved delicately bringing two beryllium hemispheres close around the core to observe neutron reflection, edging the core toward critical mass without tipping it over.

1 posted on 06/29/2025 6:16:51 PM PDT by Az Joe
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To: Az Joe
“When his hand slipped for just a moment, the hemispheres fully
encased the core, and it went critical. A sudden blue flash of
Cherenkov radiation lit up the lab. Slotin immediately pried the
hemispheres apart with his bare hands, ending the reaction and saving
the others, but at the cost of his own life.”

This guy’s Momma never told him not to play with plutonium…

2 posted on 06/29/2025 6:29:22 PM PDT by GaltAdonis
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To: Az Joe

Such a brilliant man killed by an act of stupidity. What was he thinking, using a flathead screwdriver to keep the core halves separated?


3 posted on 06/29/2025 6:31:47 PM PDT by Ciaphas Cain
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To: Az Joe
Louis Slotin, a brilliant Canadian physicist...

It appears the article refutes that assertion.

Maybe: Louis Slotin a bullheaded, situational moron from backward yokel Canaduh....

4 posted on 06/29/2025 6:32:00 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (President Trump Decisively Won Popular & E.C., Celebrate Recivilization!)
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To: Az Joe

One of the few, who actually died of radiation.
Radiation is actually quite safe, but Slotin got like 10 Sv.
Definitely too much. But his colleagues, who were just few feet away all survived.
Unfortunately, few accidents like this generate the anti-radiation hysteria, we are all experiencing.
A lot more people die falling from ladders every year than all people died of radiation, ever!


5 posted on 06/29/2025 6:34:28 PM PDT by AZJeep (sane )
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To: Az Joe

This is the origin of the expression “FAFO”.


6 posted on 06/29/2025 6:35:57 PM PDT by bigbob (Yes. We ARE going back)
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To: Az Joe
I read about this accident for the first time when I was in seventh grade. It was in an anthology of "Exciting Stories of Science," and was told in a somewhat distorted way that undoubtedly was the result of key aspects not having been de-classified yet (I was in seventh grade from 1967-68, and the book was probably five or six years old at that time). For instance, Dr. Slotin's name wasn't mentioned, and although the fact that he was using a screwdriver was mentioned, it was said that he was holding parts of the core apart with the screwdriver, not parts of a neutron reflector.

But I read it with fascinated horror, as it described the utter breakdown of his cells, skin, blood, heart, etc., as a result of the powerful blast of gamma rays and neutrons. The blue flash was also mentioned, but I thought the blue flash was in the air; I didn't realize it's source was Cherenkov radiation within his eyeballs.

Also in that book was the story of George Franklin Smith, who was the first man to eject from an airplane going faster than the speed of sound (an F-100 Super Saber) in 1955.

Another story in the book was about the search for the cause of Hodgkin's disease, which was described as "cancer of the blood." I thought this was amazing and frightful, and I wanted to work on medical research as a result of reading the book.

7 posted on 06/29/2025 6:40:26 PM PDT by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: Az Joe
Those crazy Rockefeller smarties... always tickling something

https://resource.rockarch.org/story/the-atomic-bomb-development-rockefeller-foundation-role/

https://dimes.rockarch.org/objects/dnSnsjCMYKjdLLZyE6cDTe/view holds over 1000 pages reporting on their activities between 1947 and 1950 a person can view on line.

8 posted on 06/29/2025 6:48:53 PM PDT by MurrietaMadman (The Gates of hell shall not prevail against you)
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To: Az Joe

I suspect there are videos floating about on YouTube that depict a simulated version of what that plutonium incident looked and sounded like. There was so much the world didn’t know about radiation until later in the 20th Century.

This horrible tale is almost as horrible as when I read about
The Philadelphia Experiment of 1943. Most now say the worst stories are a hoax. The conjecture that sailors absorbed so much radiation that their bodies began the process of dissolving and then fusing with the surfaces of their ship.
I read about it, and later heard about it on several Art Bell radio shows. Jury is still out.


9 posted on 06/29/2025 7:00:48 PM PDT by lee martell
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To: Az Joe

I am getting pretty old now myself and I don’t know how much longer The. Almighty will allow me.

Somebody needs to check this out.

In 1983 I was working at Downey, CA on classified programs.

I was chatting with one of our North American veterans who was way past retirement age but still working.

He suddenly commented, “I am the last one alive. I need to tell someone “.

What?

He told the story:

“In 1949 we had a small reactor which was funded by military. Suddenly, they cut the funding. Management told us to get rid of it. Of course, the project was classified so few knew it existed. We took the reactor out on a Saturday night, dug a hole under the runway and covered it with concrete”.

This was at the old Rockwell North American plant in Downey. They used to fly out the aircraft they built there in WWII. It is at the corner of Lakewood and Stewart&Gray if I remember correctly.

The runway was in the middle and ran diagonal.

I heard they turned it into a car lot.

Somebody needs to find that reactor before it hits the ground water.

You will not find this incident in history books or on the internet. I suspect I am the only one alive who knows the story.


10 posted on 06/29/2025 7:02:52 PM PDT by darth
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To: Ciaphas Cain

Truly


11 posted on 06/29/2025 7:06:42 PM PDT by Az Joe (Live free or die)
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To: darth

Interesting


12 posted on 06/29/2025 7:07:16 PM PDT by Az Joe (Live free or die)
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To: lee martell

“There was so much the world didn’t know about radiation until later in the 20th Century.”

This core was destined for the third bomb to be dropped on Japan.

He was the top bomb assembler in the world.

He knew the danger. He was know for his disregard of danger. This was about his twelfth time doing this experiment.

Having found out about his methods, Fermi said he would be dead in less than a year.


13 posted on 06/29/2025 7:07:33 PM PDT by TexasGator (..D\ logo About Issues Projects Products Connect Subscribe Invest June 19, 2025 | Insight '1-1111 -)
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To: MurrietaMadman

Yep!


14 posted on 06/29/2025 7:07:53 PM PDT by Az Joe (Live free or die)
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To: Steely Tom

Fascinating stuff


15 posted on 06/29/2025 7:09:47 PM PDT by Az Joe (Live free or die)
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To: AZJeep

Are you counting Hiroshima and Nagasaki?


16 posted on 06/29/2025 7:13:37 PM PDT by ebshumidors ( )
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To: darth

“Somebody needs to find that reactor before it hits the ground water.

You will not find this incident in history books or on the internet. I suspect I am the only one alive who knows the story.”

LOL!

You waited 42 years to warn us?


17 posted on 06/29/2025 7:15:22 PM PDT by TexasGator (..D\ logo About Issues Projects Products Connect Subscribe Invest June 19, 2025 | Insight '1-1111 -)
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To: Ciaphas Cain

My dad hired many brilliant theoretical physicists, scientists and engineers for very tough, advanced technical project. He always told me “Son, these people are brilliant, but they don’t know which end of the hammer to pick up.”

His brother, a PhD Mechanical Engineer, machined plutonium cores at Los Alamos National Lab in the early 50s. He was 98 or 99 years old when I was talking to him about his work there. I asked him about some machining tolerances and he stopped talking, went quiet for almost a minute, and finally said “I can’t tell you that. It’s classified.”


18 posted on 06/29/2025 7:25:45 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom (“Diversity is our Strength” just doesn’t carry the same message as “Death from Above”)
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To: TexasGator
Too late...someone already found the nuclear waste...


19 posted on 06/29/2025 7:32:03 PM PDT by Frank Drebin (And don't ever let me catch you guys in America!)
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To: Ciaphas Cain

He was a hoser, eh?


20 posted on 06/29/2025 7:33:01 PM PDT by Candor7 (Ask not for whom the Trump Trolls,He trolls for thee!<img src="" width=500</img><a href="">tag</a>) )
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