That was hilarious. Also kinda spooky to think that, if Japan hadn’t surrendered, Demon Core-kun would have been the 3rd nuke dropped over them.
The cartoon only covers the second story arc though, the one with the screwdriver.
In the first arc, the core is “nude” and they’re stacking neutron-reflecting bricks around it to bring it close to criticality. A scientist drops a brick by accident on top of the core and boom, blue light and you’re dead (takes 2 weeks for your body to notice though).
In the first accident there were no half-spheres, the neutrons were being reflected back using bars of tungsten carbide placed around the exposed core.
Wiki photo from a recreation of the first incident:
Image
In the second accident, a year later, the reflective material was the two beryllium half-spheres. Shims were used to ensure the two halves were never fully closed, which would trigger the nuclear chain reaction.
Supposedly, this guy liked to show off and had done this demonstration a dozen times in front of different audiences, wearing jeans and cowboy boots and using his screwdriver instead of the shims.
Some report that Fermi told the guy and others that “they would be dead in a year” if they kept doing that… and voila.
The good thing is that he at least was hunched over the core, so he mostly shielded everyone else in the room from the worst of the radiation by absorbing it himself. 9 days later, he was dead. The guy closest to him was in the hospital for several weeks with severe radiation poisoning, but at least survived but died fairly young, in his 50s, which may or may not have been related…
Still kinda want a 3D printer so I could model and print a demon core that shines blue light when you pull the screwdriver back lol. Would do amazing on a nightstand haha
ByteJunk@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That was hilarious. Also kinda spooky to think that, if Japan hadn’t surrendered, Demon Core-kun would have been the 3rd nuke dropped over them.
The cartoon only covers the second story arc though, the one with the screwdriver.
In the first arc, the core is “nude” and they’re stacking neutron-reflecting bricks around it to bring it close to criticality. A scientist drops a brick by accident on top of the core and boom, blue light and you’re dead (takes 2 weeks for your body to notice though).
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Wasn’t it the screwdriver? Or is that the second arc?
ByteJunk@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yes, that’s the second arc.
In the first accident there were no half-spheres, the neutrons were being reflected back using bars of tungsten carbide placed around the exposed core.
Wiki photo from a recreation of the first incident: Image
In the second accident, a year later, the reflective material was the two beryllium half-spheres. Shims were used to ensure the two halves were never fully closed, which would trigger the nuclear chain reaction.
Supposedly, this guy liked to show off and had done this demonstration a dozen times in front of different audiences, wearing jeans and cowboy boots and using his screwdriver instead of the shims.
Some report that Fermi told the guy and others that “they would be dead in a year” if they kept doing that… and voila.
The good thing is that he at least was hunched over the core, so he mostly shielded everyone else in the room from the worst of the radiation by absorbing it himself. 9 days later, he was dead. The guy closest to him was in the hospital for several weeks with severe radiation poisoning, but at least survived but died fairly young, in his 50s, which may or may not have been related…
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Radiation sickness is such an awful way to go
Still kinda want a 3D printer so I could model and print a demon core that shines blue light when you pull the screwdriver back lol. Would do amazing on a nightstand haha