The Demon Core and the Strange Death of Louis Slotin

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/demon-core-the-strange-death-of-louis-slotin

by krobbn • 6 years ago

5 1 6 years ago

studius• 6 years ago

This reminds me a little of Marie Curie:

"While many of her contemporaries began to appreciate the increasingly apparent dangers of radioactivity and took precautions to protect themselves, Curie used her bare hands in her work and often pipetted by mouth. She even kept a vial of pure radium salts by her bedside to enjoy its “fairy-like glow.”[1]

Also, many think about those working directly with bomb development and cores, but those processing Uranium had their share of radiation. St. Louis even has a Uranium waste site at their airport[2] that they would just dump into a pile without any covering, letting dust go up into the air over the surrounding neighborhoods. Some of the kids played in that "black dirt", sliding down it for fun[3].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1087189/

[2] http://www.stlradwastelegacy.com/st-louis-airport-site-slaps...

[3] https://firstsecretcity.com/tag/mallinckrodt/

The Demon Core and the Strange Death of Louis Slotin

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