Citation Needed - Demon Core

Episode Date: June 5, 2019

The demon core was a 6.2-kilogram (14 lb) subcritical mass of plutonium measuring 89 millimetres (3.5 in) in diameter, which was involved in two criticality accidents, on August 21, 1945 and May 21, 1946. The core was intended for use in a third World War II nuclear bomb, but remained in use for testing after Japan's surrender. It was designed with a small safety margin to ensure a successful explosion of the bomb. The device briefly went supercritical when it was accidentally placed in supercritical configurations during two separate experiments intended to guarantee the core was indeed close to the critical point. The incidents happened at the Los Alamos laboratory in 1945 and 1946, and resulted in the acute radiation poisoning and subsequent deaths of scientists Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin. After these incidents the spherical plutonium core was referred to as the "demon core". Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.  

All I know is I am not going to Eli's game night again. Really? Why? He wanted to play Scategories. Oh, that's a fun game. Well, normally, but it's not what you're thinking. He made up his own version that puts the emphasis on the Scat. Ugh. Yeah, it's a doozy. Okay, okay. I am going to hit it with a mic stand.

Boo, no, you have to pass now. I think there was a hint of blue just now. Feel your legs. Yeah, I can feel my legs. Oh, it's my turn then, my turn. You can feel those legs. Hey guys, what the hell are you doing? Oh, hey, no, I see.

So today's topic is the demon core. So Tom pulled a couple of strings and he got us a ball of plutonium. Oh, plutonium. So fun. It's cool. How? Oh, no, yeah. I got Eli's uranium guy. Nice. How is he? Oh, he's is all right. You know, he had Karen got back together. Do you hear that? No, she's God there. They're so bad together. I know. That's funny, though. Really? Guys, guys, guys,

guys, why, why the hell do you need a ball of plutonium fun? That seems like a weird question. Oh, so we can play the game. Well, I invented it. It's called get ready. Let's get critical. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, it's awesome. It's like, you know, when you bite into a wintergreen life saver in a dark room and it sparks It's like that, but like it hurts like a lot more like it really Fun. Yeah, so much more. It's great. It's like um like if you're stomach could like chew on tin I've gotta go. I got to follow Noah actually. I'll put pine, but it's more for us. All right, all right. I'm going to lower this stainless steel bowl over the top of it.

Let's get a good one. Amazing. No, sweet, oh sweet. I can't feel my legs. Okay, you guys know what that means? Let's get a call. Get a call. I wanna get a call. Get a call.

I can't. Hello and welcome to CitationNeeded, the podcast where we choose a subject read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Noah and I'll be desperately pumping water into this episode to avoid a meltdown, but I can't Homer Simpson this thing alone. So joining me tonight are two men who get angry at Donuts for not having food in that middle part, heath and top. Uh, what I always do, I get a box of munchkins and I reconstruct them.

You can, oh right, you can use your own. The middle. Or be like a pimento earlier. Blue cheese olives. It's to be fair, I get mad at food that's just gone. I get okay, right? Even if it was there. No, that's not what it's going on.

All right. And also joining us tonight are two men who technically average out to owning one half of that best friend's necklace of peace, Cecil and Eli. Yeah, can you please stop mailing those? I can't. I'm subscribed on Amazon. to owning one half of that best friend's necklace of peace, Cecil and Eli. Yeah. Can you please stop mailing those? I can't. I'm subscribed on Amazon. I have no control over it.

They just send them. All right. So before we get started, we want to explain to you that our cars broken down and we're just looking for money for the bus to get home with. And if you'd like to help out, be sure to stick around to the end of the show and find out how and with that out of the way, tell us heath, what person place think concept phenomenon or event will we be talking about today? Is that CD free? Or are you gonna make me? You're gonna, I feel like you're gonna, you're gonna give it to me. Do you or do you not like

hip-hop? I do like hip-hop. That's not the point. I feel like you're gonna trick me. I don't, I'm walking. I mean, now you already have it. You have the bracelet on your wrist. Now, no, you have it back. You can have it back. I just, I mean, we're building your bracelet though. That's why you put it on your wrist. That makes it yours. Wait, a Buddhist table. Yeah, we're going to build one. You just need two donations. That's all. That with the gold cards. Do you take Bitcoin? Okay. So here's what we're going to be talking about today. Thanks to Kerry Boo. We're going to be talking about the demon core and other criticality accidents. All right. And Cecil, you got to the core of this issue. Are you ready to give us a crash core? And hopefully it's not so boring that you guys fall out. Right.

Fall. I was like a nuclear thing with the anyway. I see. Well, see, as my failed pun effort made a bunch of clear, I don't know what the fuck we're talking about here. Despite he's having told us so, Cecil, what the fuck can we talk about here? Today's episode is about the demon core and that's, that's not a set of learning outcomes for demons or a bunch of demons in a punk band or what you eventually get to if you lick

a demon enough times. Okay. That's not funny. Cecil, some of us have licked a demon. Okay. So just right comfort, right comfort. So the democor is a spear of plutonium, three and a half inches in diameter, and it was involved in two criticality accidents. That feels like a mistake to have that. Yeah. And this, by the way, is how we know that there's no God, right? Like, we were already pretty sure what with all the baby cancer and everything, but the fact that we started making baseballs out of enriched plutonium and no divine being showed up to ask what the fuck we were thinking. That's the last nail in the coffin for me.

Wait a minute. Cecil, three and a half inches and two accidents. Are we talking about my kids? Yeah. That's how it's. Some guys pulling the demon core across the room with a coat hanger. He's just. It's all on the time. So this, this fear, he really loves them. This fear of highly fissile materials was originally

intended to be used in a bomb in World War II, but after we detonated two of those, we didn't need the third right away. So we decided to use the ball for a scientific testing after the war ended. All right. I guess we don't need this to blow up millions of people. Um, so let's see what else it can do. Let's poke it and shit. Oh, um, here's what else it could do. We could just wait for the inevitable next war. Unless we get bone spurs or something cripples now. Yeah.

Yeah. So how dangerous is a ball of plutonium you may ask? I don't know. So, oh, wow, I missed it. I'm going to spend a good chunk of the SSA explaining how dangerous it is. In order to answer that question, I have to talk a bit about how dangerous this type of material is and why. So let's start out simple and talk about using nuclear reactions as fuel.

Yeah, so let's start simple with the nuclear physics. Okay, well, so help me. God see, so if this goes back to the fucking trust, I'm done. It really does. Actually, there's kind of an interesting parallel. There's not. I'm flying.

I'm flying a Georgia right now. It's a hundred and one degrees time. I dare you. This all starts in Rome, 2400 years ago, the trustkins. Not that. So it starts in the late 1930s, early 1940s, when we recognize that you can use us certain materials to start a nuclear chain reaction. And this will release a lot of energy.

In really simple terms, a nuclear reaction is breaking the nucleus or the center of one atom with a particle or a neutron from another atom. That reaction is called fission, and it's what we use to power our reactors and the process we used in the first nuclear weapons. It is amazing to me that we figured this out, right? Like some Nazi guy was just like, Hey, fellas, I have no basis for this, but I'm guessing that if we shoot invisible stuff, like really fast at some poison metal that I have, I have a really big ball of poison metal. We shoot invisible stuff at this.

I'm thinking we'll tear apart the fabric in the universe, like right in God's face. Like in a good way. This process isn't to be confused with nuclear fusion, which is where the nuclei of two or more atoms are forced together to form a different element. And this also creates an enormous amount of energy, provided that the two starting elements are lighter than nickel or iron. So light elements are used in fusion, and heavy elements are used in fission. We do use fusion for our thermonuclear bombs,

but we haven't figured our way to safely harness this energy, unless you count solar panels, which harness radiant energy from the sun, which is powered by nuclear fusion. I wanna know my very favorite thing about people. After we dropped the bombs on Japan and witnessed the unspeakable horror that that fucking nightmare created,

somebody out there was like, it's good. We can do better, like thousands of times. Better, we can do better. We can do better. We can do better. So Cecil, solar panels are nuclear bombs. Yes.

Please don't interrupt. So you were saying? So that aside, the reason we use a very dense metal like plutonium or enriched uranium two thirty five is that a nuclear chain reaction can take place. We bombard the metal with a neutron and a chain reaction takes place when one of the nuclei is split and releases its energy and then part of that atom then splits another or more than one nuclei. These chain reactions are then controlled, meaning the reaction is slowed or stopped eventually or uncontrolled and you get what happens in a bomb. So kind of like ice nine, but everything turns into a giant radiation fireball instead of turning into ice.

It's mushroom cloud nine and it's not from a fictional book. It's real. Well, I was going to say like a meme going viral, but you had to make nuclear chain reactions sound bad. So never mind with mine. Normal controlled reactions are engineered to be safe. They use devices to make sure that the reaction does not spiral out of control.

And all the radioactive energy that is released is released in a sealed area. Right. Like the island of Japan is sealed. Okay. Okay. Okay. Control reactions.

Okay. So the byproduct of this, the heat is then used to create energy through steam power. Steam comes from water. Sorry. You said a thing. I knew and I just wanted to come into water. Yeah. This process is also what he's up. Godzilla's Jacuzzi. So it's the same. Very simple. Steam comes from water. It is water. It's the gas for water. It's not already more when it's. Yeah, trees come from wood. I don't know if that's the other way. I would say it. It's weird way to put it. Babies come from Alabama. Not like more of them now by law. Now, I talked earlier about enriched uranium 235.

Regular old grocery store uranium is uranium 238. Where do you shop? Where do you shop? Who's just gotten here? Well, he's shit. Uranium 235 has three less neutrons in its nucleus. It makes up about three quarters of one percent of all uranium, having three less neutrons in it's nucleus. It makes up about three quarters of one percent of all uranium having three less neutrons is good for chain reactions. It's sort of prime

to break apart uranium 238 takes out its headphones, looks down to jackededly, thinks, all right. I guess I could stand a lose a few neutrons, but damn. So I In order to get enriched uranium 235, we have to basically mine a shit ton of uranium, which it turns out is actually pretty common. We then separated from the other elements using all kinds of chemicals and stuff, including sulfuric acid, and we eventually get that yellow cake uranium. Once we have that, we have to stick it into a centrifuge, turn it into a gas and spin

the shit out of it. The heavier uranium 238 gets separated from the lighter uranium 235 and we package that up as nuclear fuel. Now this stuff, once it gets enriched, is pretty dangerous. Just like white people. I mean, they have all kinds of ways to make sure it doesn't start a reaction because in a large enough quantity, there doesn't need to be bombardment. It can just spontaneously fizzle.

So they make sure that the amount is very small so that it remains subcritical. They keep the small pieces separated and well spaced apart. Yeah. Well, I mean, just like we should probably do with white people. Yeah, really? Yeah. So the enriched ones. To understand this better, we separate it into slender rods

and then we maneuver these rods next to each other to create a reaction in some of our nuclear reactors. So it needs to get handled very carefully. And this is a huge part of the story of the demon cool. Okay, see, so the rod is slender. That's fair, but no matter how carefully handled it's going to explode. I sorry, guys. I know that was bad.

It's just we were three pages on a dick joke. I felt like it was awkward for everybody. That's fine. Yeah. I actually forgot we were getting to a demon core entire. I thought this was that nightmare where I'm naked and I'm back in school and I don't know anything, you know, two out of three. I guess really. Yeah.

I really wish it was one out of. And I promised we're going to get to the demon core. But first I want to roll back to plutonium. Oh, we're just going to skip over neptonium altogether. Okay. Fine. Classic by valve erasure. What? What? Neptune is the god of the sea. By valve is a water.

Is that like a plan? Bisexual eraser. Is it a plan? Yeah, yeah, clam. Neptune. Clive valves come from steam. Clam. Oh, Neptune. Climb. Climb valves come from steam.

All right. All right. All right. Moving on. The demon core is not uranium two 35. It's made from plutonium, which is a byproduct from a reaction with uranium two 35 when that chain reaction takes place. Sometimes a strain neutron smushes into uranium two8 and creates plutonium 239, which when fishing

gives off more energy than uranium 235. Uranium 235 was used in the little boy bomb in World War II and we use plutonium in the fat man. Yeah, I read that and that's why I'm going on the plutonium diet. It's like, it's way better than keto like just. Yeah, I know though. Yeah, yeah. The way it really does just fall right off.

I know I'm counting on it. I'm counting really good. My funeral. Nope. So like I said, there was a sphere of this leftover. It's part plutonium, part gallium pressed into a hemisphere and each half is separated by a small ring. Wikipedia describes its purpose.

It is quote, designed to keep the neutron flux from jetting out of the joint surface between the hemispheres during implosion. End quote. The entire thing is coded in nickel because plutonium oxidizes easily and they had an inventornex yet. So they're still on the way to do that. Or you can actually squeeze lemon juice over the time. I do that with like sliced

apples and avocados. You just you squeezed the lemon. I do that with like sliced apples and avocados and you squeeze the lemon. I was spending way too much on nickel. It was, it was a lot. Every glimpse into your life is a David Foster Wallace short story. I just need you to know that every, every single time you open up about your life, name a David Foster Wallace short story. Happen, cram a neck. Oh, got it.

Consider the lobster a story. It's an urban ass thing. Consideram a neck. Got it. Consider the lobster a story. It's an amazing. Consider a lobster. Now this fucking thing is hyper dangerous to steam and core. It's basically the same exact thing we used when we tested the first bomb during the Trinity test. It was made where they made the first two bombs to loss Alamos and it stayed there after the Japanese surrender.

And soon we're going to find out how we provoke it into killing two people. Did we cheat on it with its sister? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha and give you a bit of apropos of nothing. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Good evening, I'm Horsuch Brown Snatch, and this is Plutonium and you. This is Bill. Bill works in one of America's brand new nuclear power plants producing clean energy for the average American. Say, Bill, I'll bet you a what for a bar against your sugar babies, then I can throw this

chunk of plutonium through the safety ring. Ha, you're on! Uh oh, Bill made a serious error. Now what did Bill do wrong? That's right, no one should trade a what for bar against sugar babies. Nine out of ten doctors agree, what for is the smoothest smokeable candy bar in America? Now this is Julie. She works in a plutonium processing facility.

Let's check in on her workday. I say, I suppose I could go home quicker if I get this safety gear and just lower the uranium hardest path hand. Again, a grave mistake. What did Julie do wrong? That's right. A woman's place is in the home. Take that Helen Keller. I'm a hostage brown snatch and this has been Plutonium and you. Please turn the record over if I side B, the hidden Octaroo. And we're back when we last left off. Cecil was telling us about a ball more dangerous to the future of humankind than Eli's potential for procreation.

So Cecil, he killed that way. It's so mean. It just wouldn't be an episode of citation needed if we didn't laugh at the unfortunate death of strangers. So you said this thing killed some folks, right? Yeah. Yeah. Before I tell you how the demon core killed some people, let's talk about some other criticality

accidents. Turns out a few of these happen in Los Alamos, no surprise. One researcher named Otto Freish. Freish, I don't know from pronouncing that correctly, Frisch received a nonlethal dose of radiation when he was stacking bars of uranium to 35. All right. All right. That all sounds bad. But you have to admit, it's kind of cool to walk around just like buzzing and showing everyone your bones all day. That's fucking yeah. Yeah. No, right. And, and find enough meth to keep that up for very long. Get super.

That's the way I switch. So rough. And you're like, Oh my God, my bones are visible. And he was researching how many bars it would take to reach critical mass. He was, he was, he was too many. Okay. Yeah. Wrong answer. Yeah. We're all dead. He was stacking them and he's leaning over the pile. Okay. So, uh, you know what game nobody ever wins at Uranium J. Yeah. That's super. Yeah.

Pretty much all the Uranium games. And, and, and this is when he he noticed that quote, the lamps that flickered intermittently when neutrons were being admitted were glowing continuously. So he swatted the bars and destroyed the world's most dangerous Lincoln log house and did not die. Although he later admitted quote, that if he had hesitated for another two seconds before removing the material, the dose would have been fatal. End quote. Or, or before starting to play that game, if he had hesitated. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

When you're testing for critical mass of, of anything, you got to want to be on your toes. You want to be on your toes. I would think. I agree. I would think he solved the problem by just hitting it. Yeah. I really solve the problem by just hitting it. Just, yeah. Oh god. That's just it like for fuck's sake, like the canary and the coal mine only works.

If you watch the fucking canary on a whole way, that's just, are you fucking kidding me? You're in a room with the most dangerous possible shit on earth and there's a fucking death lamp that only lights up with bad things happen and that you're only like, oh, is that on? Who turned on the debt?

Oh, that's my dad. I don't know. Hit it. Hit it really hard. And also, hey, if the stated goal of your experiment is see how many of these I can stack up before it becomes deadly amounts of stupid, just save yourself a fucking pit area. I don't use that light out at all. Yeah, I'll find out eventually. Stack of dead canaries fell down, Jenga.

So in June of 1945, a scientist by the name of John Bissline was experimenting using water as a way to reflect neutrons. This test, of course, involved a bit of enriched uranium, 235, and water. Turns out these are great of separate, but this is of enriched uranium, 235 and water. Turns out these are great of separate, but this is one drink you don't want shaken or stirred during the experiment. The water leaked into the box, holding the uranium and started to quote function as a highly effective moderator rather than just a neutron reflector. End quote three people received non-lethal doses of radiation in this accident. Okay, so he bought weapons grade uranium,

but he couldn't splurge on a goddamn Ziploc baggy to keep it dry. We're trying to feed Hitler and he's like, all right, well, I had this great thing to win, but I spilled. What are you fucking a, get on a sippy cup and a baggy, fuck, what's happening? Like, I feel like the entire 1940s was just like a never any stream of some guy asking like, Hey, what did I end the world if I?

So one more accident happened on Los Alamos, but 13 years after the demon core incidents, chemical operator by the name of Cecil Kelly was working on purifying plutonium. The process involved dissolving the plutonium first in an organic solvent. That solvent was then put into a machine where it had to be stirred. Well, the machine was switched on and then it started stirring the mixture, but it created a little vortex at the center. Well, the plutonium was too high in concentration in the liquid and it masked in that vortex. Enough of it was there to have a criticality accident. And in 200 microseconds, he was zapped with 3,900 to 4,900 rads. He died 35 hours later. And by the way, I just want to point out how short a time this band says,

a million microseconds is a single second. Yeah. So that'll just tell you how quick this was. Two cheques of stopwatch. Oh, I'm dead. Look at that. Yeah. So let's talk about the human core. This is a ball of plutonium that was 5% below critical mass, meaning it's not a super safe item. Sure. They're, they're actually testing it at Los Alamos to see how close they can get it to the critical point. What? I mean, it's basically, it's basically a shiny spherical bear that they were poking with the stick. What?

Hey, man, you put your atomic grenade on the very edge of the table. Can you just slide it or like don't have a coaster? Atomic edging is not recommended. That's not hot. I mean, it's hot. Anyway, Steve is water. I know what that means. The first incident happens in August, the 1945 right after we use the two bombs on Japan.

Like I said before, the break, the demon corps left over from that. So a scientist named Harry Dagleon, I don't know, I'm terrible at names, was conducting an experiment to reflect the neutrons back at the core to approach criticality. He was working at a station and a security guard was about 10 feet away at another desk. The scientists started stacking tungsten carbide bricks around the core, increasing their reflection and inching it closer to criticality. Why why why why why why why why why why why why is it there has to be a non mouse trap based way to do science.

That should have been first before the science is the well well very Carefully like really carefully stacking these bricks around the core. He actually dropped one At The money find a brick place there was some Fuck we're trying to be Hitler. It is grandson get a fucking job at that Titan missile silo. Yeah. And no,

when he dropped the brick on it, it made the demon core very angry and it released a fatal dose of radiation. He quickly took the brick off the top of the demon core, but he died 25 days anyway, 25 days later anyway from radiation poisoning. The court was not angry enough to kill the security guard. At least not for 33 years. He died of leukemia at age 62. Possibly it was chemtrails.

We don't, I mean, good go. We don't have anything else for sure. There's probably chemtrails. I'm sorry, but to be fair, his job was security and he sat there doing nothing while jittery Joe built an egg rule of ignition picture on the going pro cable of gas. All right. I know had Luke Amy a comment. Someone had to say it. Get off your phone security guard. Jesus. Two seconds. Oh, sprinkly ball. So, yeah. So the next time it kills someone is in May of the following year. they were again performing

similar tests in the demon core. Why? They were, but they know they just hit it with a bat. Yeah. You were a bat. Oh, and they were actually placing metal bricks around it. But instead they were lowing a reflector around it, measuring the reaction and lifting the reflector off.

The reflector was lowered using a thumb hole on the top and it was two hemispheres. The first hemispheres faced stationary and they lowered the top hemisphere onto it. Right. No, like the chamber that heath and the Eli keep me in between records before I have my helmet. Yeah. Yeah. So the problem of course is that if the hemispheres of the reflector touch, then it 100% goes

critical. So don't do that in order to keep the reflectors from touching. They have a safety protocol. Yeah. Yeah. You know, a spoiler alert. They're going to do that. So, um, so there's a safety protocol that used shims to keep the reflector from touching.

But there's this cowboy scientist by the name of Lewis Slotten. Nope. And he wasn't going to follow your boring rules. the reflector from touching, but there's this cowboy scientist by the name of Lewis Slotten. Nope. And he wasn't going to follow your boring rules. He didn't need your fancy city slicker shims. All he needed was a straight blade screwdriver. Nope. Nope.

Absolutely not. Screw driver cannot be the answer to any questions at the Manhattan object. That is unacceptable. So Slotten, I'm going to quote directly from Wikipedia here, Slotten, who was given to bravado, became a local expert performing the test on almost a dozen occasions, often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots. And I'm okay with him dying. Yeah, me too.

That's fine. No, you're not. In front of a room full of observers. In Rico Fermi, reportedly told Slotten and others that they would be quote, dead within a year and quote, if they continued performing the test in that manner, 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. So instead of the shims, he slips the screwdriver in between where the two pieces come together.

But this time, the screwdriver slips and comes out a fraction of an inch and the cover basically comes together like two halves of a coconut shell and a Monty Python movie. He then immediately flips the top of it off onto the ground, but it was enough time to give him and the person directly behind him a very high dose of radiation. Slotten dies nine days later, probably from embarrassment, and the person standing directly behind him was Alvin Graves. He was hospitalized for several weeks with radiation poisoning and died 19 years later from a heart attack that may have been brought on by this not immediate lethal dose of radiation.

Yeah. And side note, as funeral, his dad just shook his head and did the disappointment just trapped the screwdriver. All those hours holding the flashlight, all the training, everything. So these are the criticality accidents at Los Alamos, but there are others during the war. There was another site where they were working on nuclear weapons. It was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oh, okay. Well, you trust Tennessee ends with uranium

and you deserve what you get. At the Oak Ridge facility, they specialized in refining the fuel for weapons. The facility stayed open after the war and remained a nuclear fuel refinery. In June of 58, a batch of highly enriched uranium somehow wound up in a 55 gallon drum. The reaction kept going for about 15 or 20 minutes and exposed eight workers to radiation. No one died, but they spent 44 days in the hospital. Good news is that eight of them settled out a court for between $9,000 and $18,000 each and bad news is they also settled out a court for cancer. So that was like not as yeah, radiation is one of those things you almost want the lethal dose

of though. Give it a micro. More than fucking 18,000 dollars. Yeah. Fuck your 18 grand. Another one I want to mention is an accident that happened in Russia. At this facility, they were using solvents to extract plutonium and purify it. They wind up putting fissile materials into a tank and they need to extract them. The wiki says, quote, against procedure, a shift supervisor ordered two operators

to lower the tank inventory and remove the solvent to another vessel. The two operators were using an unfavorable geometry vessel in an improvised and unapproved operation as a temporary vessel for storing plutonium organic solution. What a great bullshit term unfavorable geometry. Yeah. In other words, they were de-canonium solutions

into the wrong type, more importantly, the wrong shape of the chain. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care where you put it, just get it out of here. Okay, let me just finish my big gulp and we're dead. Yep, we are both very much both dead. So as the solvent is getting poured out, there's a flash of light and heat.

It's never good when dealing with plutonium. They drop the bottle and they tried out run the neutrons. They evacuate the plant and then quote, the shift supervisor then deceive the radiation control supervisor and entered the room of the incident. This was followed by a third and largest criticality excursion that irradiated the shift supervisor with a fatal dose of radiation possibly due to an attempt by the supervisor to pour the solution down a floor drain. I'm so one. What? What?

I mean that rug. I'm just going to sweep this. Newtonium under here. Literally. They put it, put it back. Just very gently and then actually bumps it. He'll be the one that's in there. What?

Oh my god, I can't believe he dropped all that. Tonya. They're just pouring it down the drain whistling loudly. You're looking in the direction. No, my phones were glowing like this one I came in. What are you talking about? It's the math. I told you, you guys are weird. So the, the, the floor trains terrible idea. The shift supervisor dies a month later.

The worker got a lucky only getting radiation sickness. Bad news was that the sickness was bad enough where they had to amputate his, his hand and both his legs. He's just quite a great day for that guy. sickness was bad enough where they had to amputate his, his hand and bolt his leg. Jesus. Not a great day for that guy. At same facility eight months later, they're draining some solution with fissile material in it. And four workers got a little impatient.

They decide to get this stuff drained faster by unbolting the tank from its mounting and tipping and over a drain. Well, there you go. So then then they crowded around it to watch it go down the drain, I guess. And the bodies. And the bodies. Hey, what's the world?

You want to watch? The bodies around it. The bodies around the draining material created enough of a reflection to cause a brief critical man. Jesus Christ. Hey, you guys want to see what it looks like when we die? But maybe we'll get superpowers. Nope. We're just dead.

That's, I can't run faster or anything. Good. I can't throw lasers off my fingers, but I can throw my fingers at you. Everyone, quick, get angry. So the three closest to this, like pouring liquid, got enough radiation to kill them six days later. But the fourth one got off easy and just had a loss of eyesight. So here we go. Right. We're in bed.

Probably good at music. All right. So if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence, what would it be? Turns out, atheist aren't the only ones critical of mass. Well, there we go. Oh, no. And are you ready for the quiz, sir? Absolutely, let's do this. All right, Cecil. What?

What was your essay about? What was it? Was it A? Sometimes the rocks that make nukes out of, look at themselves in a mirror and then everyone dies. What? What Was it? It's not your own poet, your own poet. Yeah.

Oh, it's a poet. B, people at nuclear power plants say, you know, it would speed this up way more often than they showed. See, guys showed up to work at a radiation part of the university dress like a cowboy and they didn't fire him immediately. Or D, critic, Cality, critically, criticality, nests. Critic, yes. Okay.

All right. I'm going to go with B. How many stories have we heard where people think highly radioactive materials about as dangerous as a half half full mop bucket? Everybody plays with it every time. He's like, we put him every time. All right. Cecil, so what experiments have we not tried yet on the super happy, fun apocalypse ball because our scientists are cowards. A, waterboarding.

I did that in the morning. I did that by accident. That's it. That's it by accident. Yeah. B, fuck its literal mom. Or C, throw a milkshake at it and see if it becomes a pacifist nuclear device. I want to go with, uh, because it's you, heath, be fuck its mom.

I don't see how that's related to me. It's fine. All right. I have one for you, Cecil. Uh, despite this essay, uh, nuclear remains by far the safest way to get energy. In fact, in terms of deaths per terawatt hour, it's about four times safer than wind energy. So despite this essay happens at the beginning of every day. So why do we still use nuclear power so infrequently?

Is it A, because dying 20 years later from radiation is way scarier than dying 20 years later from black lung? B, people are scared of genetically modified tomatoes. How the fuck do you expect them to get their heads around responsibly handled death rocks? C, solar panels never unleashed the wrath of Godzilla. Or D, we don't want to have to listen to people pronounce it nuclear any more often than we have to. I'm going to go with secret answer. Eads, you know how many piles of dead bald eagles we find at the bottom of those cooling to. Oh, my God. Fucking huge like the Israelites in the desert.

There's just there everywhere. What? Just not sure how that. All right, Cecil, scientists in the early half of the 20th century, we clearly took some risks. And the only reason any of us are here is dumb fucking luck. What other doomsday products were they working on? A, eradicating smallpox, but then keeping a little just in case later.

Be neutron bombs, which is basically just your essay, but on purpose, or seed dragons. We haven't got enough. We have a guy and a see I'm going to go with a secret answer, e purposely heating up the atmosphere so that lizard people over lords are more comfortable. Oh, you were so close, but that was actually a secret answer. D you, you skip the whole thing. So, there's that round club right there. I'm sick.

Because normally people do an extra, because some people actually put four choices on. Yeah, no, Tom, you would do that. I did a three choice. See, so which is less than that. Oh, yes. Did we see that? I did a three twice. See, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see, see My essay is also full of facts All right well for Cecil Eli heathen time I'm no a thing and you're franking out with us today, but we'll back next week and by then Eli I'll be an expert on something else No, I can't even I can't even pretend

We know that after what we know now And not between now and then of course you can hear more of us on our other stuff be sure to check out cognitive dissonance the scaling a the a scat awful movies in the skeptic rat and if you like to help keep this show going You can make a per episode donation at patreon dot com slash citation pod or leave us a five star review everywhere You can and if you want to get in touch with us check out past episodes or connect with us on social media or even check the show Let's be sure to check out citation pod dot com Oh I don't feel good. Oh, dude. Holy shit, is that all your teeth? Nope. Oh, that's all of them.

Right. Eli, I checked the rule book. I think if it's all his teeth, he gets to go again. Did we say that? Uh, to us under T. Yeah, he does. You know what that means? Nope.

Nope. Oh, that's all of them. Right. Eli, I checked the rule book. Oh. I think if it's all his teeth, he gets to go again. Did we say that? To us under tea. Yeah, he does. He does. You know what that means? Let's get rid of the cool. Okay, let's go. Everyone, man.

Let's, I'm. you