My favorite thing about the Demon Core is that, unlike nearly all other radioactive incidents, everyone manipulating it was completely aware that the game they were playing was ridiculously dangerous and extremely stupid...it was a peer reviewed "fuck around and find out" accident by people with doctorades
The experimenter needed to maintain a slight separation between the reflector halves in order to stay below criticality. The standard protocol was to use shims between the halves, as allowing them to close completely could result in the instantaneous formation of a critical mass and a lethal power excursion. Under Slotin's own unapproved protocol, the shims were not used and the only thing preventing the closure was the blade of a standard flat-tipped screwdriver manipulated in Slotin's other hand. Slotin, who was given to bravado, became the local expert, performing the test on almost a dozen occasions, often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots, in front of a roomful of observers. Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" 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, who compared the experiments to "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon". On the day of the accident, Slotin's screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector, allowing the reflector to fall into place around the core. Instantly, there was a flash of blue light and a wave of heat across Slotin's skin; the core had become supercritical, releasing an intense burst of neutron radiation estimated to have lasted about a half second.
Cringe radiation sickness from my fail safety protocol
Wait, this is so fucking funny
"Tonight we honor an American hero: Guy Who Fucked Around and Found Out.
Your quick thinking and fast acting minimized the damage caused entirely by yourself. It would be easy to let your infinite hubris distract you while you played around with a subcritical mass of plutonium near several other people, but in the face of a predictable and entirely preventable accident with a clear precedent, you stepped up to make sure you'd be the only one hit by a lethal dose of ionizing radiation, so your colleagues would merely suffer from cancer.
Thank you for your service, and may you rest in peace."
