This is the sort of high-brow memery I’ve come to expect from Lemmy
It’s demon core kun!
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).
Wasn’t it the screwdriver? Or is that the second arc?
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:
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…
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
I’m not smart enough to understand this…
The Demon Core was a sphere of plutonium intended to be used as part of a nuclear bomb dropped on Japan. It wasn’t used for this purpose, and instead nuclear physicists used it in various experiments. Two of which involved approaching criticality.
One experiment involved stacking bricks made of some neutron reflecting material, like beryllium or something, around the core. Reflecting neutrons back at the plutonium would cause more fission events to occur; if it hits a certain threshold called criticality it it will release a considerable amount of radiation and heat. The goal was to get close to, but not exceed, that limit. The scientist was about to place one more brick when his instruments told him it would go critical if the brick was placed, so he started to back off…and dropped the brick.
The core went critical, releasing a wave of heat and a blast of dazzling blue light. Thinking quickly, the scientist smacked the brick away with his hand. He spent the next couple weeks dying of radiation sickness.
A short time later, another scientist started a similar experiment, this time enclosing the core in two half-spherical metal shells. If the core was completely surrounded by the shells, it would go critical. He used the blade of a flathead screwdriver to almost, but not quite, close the shells. Then the screwdriver slipped and the shells fully closed.
The core went critical, releasing a wave of heat and a blast of blinding blue light. Thinking quickly, the scientist smacked the upper shell away with his hand. He spent the next couple weeks dying of radiation sickness.
Decades later, youtube hair and beard model Kyle Hill released a video detailing this story, and it has since become something of a sensation on the internet. Images of the demon core in its “closing the shells” configuration is often used as shorthand for something that is exceedingly needlessly reckless. Some of the humor comes from if ya know, ya know, some of it is based in the justaposition of teh high intelligence required to do nuclear physics, with the negligent stupidity of putting nothing between you and a long ugly painful death but the blade of a screwdriver.
What was the point of these approaching criticality experiments anyways?
If youre not clicking the link: the smaller ball is a famous sphere of plutonium for use in a nuclear bomb (wouldve been the third one dropped on japan) that killed a lot of people in multiple lab accidents. The larger thing is its receptacle/shielding, which is open in these photos (which would kill everyone in the room)
Imagine a cursed evil (or maybe just anti imperialist) sword that never got a handle attached, but it’s…not a sword.
Actually, open is good. When the shield (really a reflector) is closed, the core goes critical. Basically, the shield is made of mirrors that reflect neutrons back into the core, knocking more neutrons loose which then get reflected back in, at the point of criticality creating a feedback loop that will run away- a huge explosion. The closer the sphere is to fully closed, the more energy generated and the more radiation emitted.
Oh, i remember the story about the guy doing a party trick sith a screwdriver and killing the whole room. Thing in pic looked similar.
Yeah that’s the point. The screwdriver kept it open (the “safe” configuration) and when the screwdriver was removed it closed (killing everyone)
Oh! Got it. So its the putting it back on in the pics that causes the everybody being dead?
Yws, and that would be the goal of the little boy that’s playing the game
I definitely was not that smart. That was a very interesting read though. I would totally be the guy that drops a brick on it…
In the future, every kid will have one of this.
I’m sure in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drug store.
Right next to the pinball machines.
Lmao, watched the musical this past weekend with visiting fam, would recommend
That might explain a few things.
Amazing!
Rad!
Daaaad
