A Lethal Slip: The Slotin Incident

A single slip of a flathead screwdriver unleashed a burst of lethal neutron radiation. <break time="0.5s" />

Physicist Louis Slotin was "tickling the dragon's tail," manually lowering a beryllium reflector

over a plutonium core. He bypassed standard safety protocols, trusting only his

steady hand to maintain a lethal hair-width gap. When the tool slipped, the tamper snapped

shut, trapping neutrons and forcing the core instantly supercritical. A flash of blue

ionization flooded the room as a wave of heat hit Slotin’s hand. In less than a second,

he absorbed a lethal dose of hard radiation that began disintegrating his body on a cellular level.

He died in agony nine days later, proving that a momentary lapse in judgment...