And I don’t care if you don’t get it. I get it.

      • MeatPilot@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The folks exposed died a few days after. So it wasn’t instant. Very slow and horrible probably as all their organs and cells died at a molecular level and skin fell off.

        So damage over time and can not be healed. Would be accurate.

        • Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Slotin knew he fucked up as soon as it happened too. Apparently, he would always use a screwdriver to hold the thing open and was warned multiple times he was gonna kill himself. He did use himself as a human shield, though (not sure if it was deliberate or just happenstance), and ended up being the only fatality in that incident, iirc.

          • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            In fairness, several others in the room died years-to-decades later of leukemias that were arguably attributable to their exposures. That said, the Slotin criticality accident is one of those cases where nuclear disasters end up being both completely horrifying and a lot less deadly than you think they ought to be.

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    i mean, to be clear, this isn’t a doomsday weapon, this is what we call a mass casualty weapon.

    This is probably more closely related to starting a fire in the middle of a battlefield more than anything.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        i’m fun! You just need to be technically accurate when you’re having fun smh.

        Now to be fair, i do have an autistic interest in nuclear power, so i know more than the average person. But like, it only makes it funnier :)

          • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            i do have an autistic interest in nuclear power, so i know more than the average person. But like, it only makes it funnier

            “You know what’s funny?” Asked KillingTimeItself while flicking another match into the brush. “If we had the demon core here and I threw it and hit someone with it in such a way that it momentarily reached prompt criticality, it would be like stabbing them with the world’s slowest knife. Heck, even if you missed, it would still be like a cancer knife that would get them years later.”

            FlyingSquid looked on incredulously. “Man, that’s fucked up.”

            Just then, the brush caught fire, setting the active battlefield alight and casting a glow on TheFartographer’s face, who was jealous because he forgot to bring matches or a lighter. All three friends giggled and snuck away from the fire.

            Just then, TheFartographer got shot in the ass two inches from his butthole and died immediately. FlyingSquid and KillingTimeItself took TheFartographer’s shoes and looted his body, using the valuables to buy more matches in town. They really hadn’t gotten that close to TheFartographer in their time together and he could be a bit of a bastard.

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              7 months ago

              you forgot the part where i would throw it at someone purely to do blunt force trauma because it turns out metal heavy.

              It’s just some gambling based on the fact that you might get some spicy electrons coming your way.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        If you tried to make one the size of the moon, it would blow up a bit past the time you got it to the size of an atomic bomb core. Or, if you did it slowly enough, it would go critical but stop being pure enough to explode.

    • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      Demon Core. It was meant to be part of a third nuclear bomb to be dropped on Japan, but after their surrender, the core was used in two experiments which both killed several people via exposure to lethal doses of radiation.

      • Tja@programming.dev
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        7 months ago

        It was used in hundreds of experiments, two of which killed the respective operator and injured others.

      • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        My favourite thing about that story remains that even if everything had gone to plan and he hadn’t fully dropped the second half , it would still just be a couple of dudes with PhDs only slightly irradiating their own junk.

        • dependencyinjection
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          7 months ago

          My favourite part from reading it then is:

          Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be “dead within a year” if they continued performing the test in that manner.

          Slotin died.

    • kernelle@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      It’s becoming a meme because every creator who has anything to do with nuclear or tragedy has covered the demon core.

  • ThrowawaySobriquet@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    The first time this thing killed someone was because they dropped a brick on it. The second time this thing killed someone was because they were fuckin around with it using a screwdriver

    • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Yeah reading the Wikipedia article, the drop is unfortunate but the screwdriver bit, what a fucking moron. And he regularly did this while others observed, like fuck me if you’re going to be a dumbass, be a dumbass by yourself, dumbass.

      • ThrowawaySobriquet@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Oh, for sure, the screwdriver was a “hold my beer” moment. The brick, though, I gotta disagree. While it was an unfortunate accident, we knew enough about radiation at that point to know even tiny accidents could delete you. Playing Legos around something I know could kill me in an attempt to ease it to the point of maybe almost killing me just sounds like a slightly better thought out way of asking someone to hold my beer

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    7 months ago

    So like when, what I assume is an irradiated piece of metal, slipped in the back of Homer’s shirt he killed himself and like the entire town, right?

    The thing was glowing.

  • ekZepp@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    All it took is a good swing, and then your enemy are gone… as well as anything else in a couple of kilometers.

    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 months ago

      except for the fact that it would be more like 50m at most, assuming that you count still living for 20 years, and the fact that the person wielding the weapon has already melted into a puddle of goo by that point, yeah. It’s a weapon with a ranged attack.

      • psud@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Melee area effect weapons. There’s a wand of fireball in Balders Gate 3 that is bent and has melee range. This is like that, but the fire is only analogous to fire and the effect lasts longer and does damage slower