Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (77 page)

And that small box that Harry Daghlian was building that night in August 1945 was all about containing the neutrons.

When dropped onto concrete from a height of 100" a regulation tennis ball must bounce 53"–58".

CORE VALUES

Daghlian was working with a gray, softball-sized sphere of Pu-239. It was basically the
core
, or
pit
, of a nuclear bomb—the part that does the exploding. He was performing experiments with the core to determine whether it was the proper size and density to sustain a chain reaction—so it could be used in an actual bomb.

Daghlian began surrounding the core with bricks of tungsten carbide, a very dense metal that reflects neutron radiation. The more enclosed in metal the core became, the more neutrons were reflected back
into
the core, rather than simply flying off. That meant that the rate of neutron bashing and atom splitting in the core increased as Daghlian added more and more bricks. (A geiger counter indicated whether the experiment was working, by clicking faster and faster.) Two very important notes:

• Daghlian wanted the chain reaction to increase to just below a
critical
state, meaning to a controlled chain reaction.

• He did
not
want the reaction to grow to a
supercritical
state, meaning one that was escalating completely out of control.

Using the bricks, Daghlian built walls, about ten inches on a side and ten inches high, around the plutonium. He then took a brick and slowly positioned it—he was simply holding it in his hand—over the opening at the top of the structure, right over the core. The geiger counter clicked wildly. Enough neutrons were now being reflected back into the core that it was headed toward a
supercritical
state.

Daghlian went to jerk the brick away...and dropped it.

UH-OH

The brick landed right on top of the ball of plutonium. The plutonium was now effectively surrounded by neutron reflecting material, and it went supercritical immediately. There was a blue flash—an effect of the sudden release of radiation—and the geiger counter was screaming. Daghlian grabbed the dropped brick in a panic...and dropped it again. He tried to overturn the table he was working on—but it was too heavy. He finally just started taking the bricks away from around the plutonium, one by one. The chain reaction finally stopped, and the geiger counter quieted down. Roughly one minute had passed. It was one minute too much for Harry Daghlian. He had been exposed to a massive amount of radiation. Within hours he stated feeling nauseated, the first sign of radiation sickness. He checked himself into a hospital. After a few days his hands, which had received the brunt of the radiation, began to blister due to radiation burns. He deteriorated steadily after that, and, on September 15, twenty-five days after the accident, Harry Daghlian died.

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THE SECOND VICTIM

Nine months after Daghlian’s death, in May 1946, the core that he had been experimenting on was designated for use in an actual bomb, to be exploded in a test over the Pacific Ocean. On May 21, Louis Slotin, Daghlian’s friend and colleague (he had been on vacation during the accident) decided to perform one last experiment on it.

Slotin’s experiment was similar to Daghlian’s, but instead of using bricks of tungsten carbide, he had two bowl-like hemispheres made of
beryllium
—another metal that acts as a neutron reflector. (The two hemispheres could be put together to form a hollow ball; the hollow was just the right size to hold the plutonium core.) One of the hemispheres sat in a frame on a table. Slotin placed the plutonium core in it, then placed the other hemisphere over the top of the core...but not all the way. He could not cover the core and allow it to be completely surrounded by the neutron-reflecting beryllium or, as happened to Daghlian, an uncontrolled chain reaction would start. But that’s exactly what happened.

NOT AGAIN

The experiment Slotin was performing with the beryllium hemispheres required him to insert the tip of an ordinary screwdriver (yes, a screwdriver) under the lip of the beryllium cap, and raise it and lower it, noting by use of a geiger counter how much of a chain reaction was being created. He was also supposed to be using safety wedges, which would insure that if the screwdriver slipped, the beryllium cap wouldn’t fall and cover the core. But Slotin didn’t use the wedges...and the screwdriver slipped.

The beryllium cap fell, the core became completely contained, and it immediately went supercritical. Even worse: There were seven other people standing around the table, watching Slotin work. As with Daghlian’s accident, there was an instant blue flash, and the geiger counter started ticking wildly. (The people in the room later said they also felt a surge of heat.) To Slotin’s great credit, he immediately put himself at enormous risk by prying the spheres apart—with his bare hands—thereby stopping the reaction. In doing so he received a dose of radiation several times greater than Daghlian had. The effect came almost immediately; he was already vomiting as walked out of the lab. Nine days later, after what can only be described as a period of horrible suffering, Slotin died. The “Demon Core,” as it was soon known by scientists at Los Alamos, had killed its second victim.

How do you know when you have
sulfhemoglobinemia
? Your blood turns blue or green.

THE END?

A baffling part of this entire story was that Daghlian’s accident took place in the
evening
. He had already worked a regular day shift, but had gone back to the lab at around 9:30 p.m., after dinner. He wasn’t supposed to do this. And he definitely wasn’t supposed to be performing criticality experiments without another scientist present. To this day nobody knows why he was there that night. And Slotin’s irresponsibility in not using the safety wedges? Nobody knows why that happened either. And the sad reality is that they weren’t the only victims of the Demon Core:

• Army Private Robert J. Hemmerly, 29, was serving as a guard in the lab when Daghlian’s accident took place. He was at a desk reading a newspaper at the far end of the lab when he saw the blue flash. He died 33 years later, at the age of 62, of leukemia, which is believed to have been brought on by his exposure to radiation during the accident.

• Alvin Graves was the person closest to Slotin during his accident. Slotin’s action in separating the hemispheres partially shielded Graves, but he was hospitalized for several weeks with severe radiation poisoning nonetheless. He developed several lasting health problems, including vision loss, and died 18 years later, at the age of 55, of radiation-related complications.

• Of the six others in the room with Slotin, three are believed to have had their lives significantly shortened by the Demon Core.

• On July 1, 1946, the softball-sized core of Pu-239 that had killed two of America’s most important scientists was detonated near the Bikini Islands in the Pacific Ocean, in the fourth nuclear bomb explosion in history. The Demon Core was no more.

It is illegal in the U.S. to sell raw almonds. They must be pasteurized before sale.

• The Bikini bomb test that finished off the Demon Core used a much higher percentage of its nuclear fuel than its predecessors and was more powerful by several
kilotons
(the explosive force of a thousand tons of TNT), meaning that, if nothing else, Daghlian’s and Slotin’s tests were successful.

• During several unmanned ships were anchored in the drop zone to study the bomb’s effects. Locked in several of those ships were 57 guinea pigs, 109 mice, 146 pigs, 176 goats, and 3,030 white rats. They were there so scientists could study the effects of nuclear bombs on animals. The bomb killed 10 percent of them immediately; most of the remainder died of radiation poisoning in the weeks that followed.

• At least one of those animals escaped the wrath of the Demon Core, and got a bit of celebrity doing it: A 50-pound pig known as “Pig 311” was aboard an old war ship in the drop zone. (She was locked in the ship’s officers’ toilet.) The detonation sank the ship—but sailors later found Pig 311 swimming in the ocean. She was taken to the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, where she lived for the next three years—growing to a mammoth 600 pounds. In 1949, Pig 311 was given to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., where she became one of their most popular displays. She died there in 1950.

• If you want a better picture of just what Louis Slotin was doing in his experiment, watch the 1989 film
Fat Man and Little Boy
about the Manhattan Project. In it, John Cusack plays a scientist who performs a fairly accurate version of Slotin’s accident.

ISN’T IT IRONIC?

In 2010 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who became famous for leaking thousands of sensitive diplomatic cables, got upset when someone leaked Swiss police reports of sex crimes he’d allegedly committed. Said Assange’s lawyer: “Whoever did this is just trying to make Julian look bad.”

Seeing faces on Mars, in pieces of toast, etc., is a psychological phenomenon called
pareidolia
.

EXHUMED!

On page 195, we told you about some famous people who weren’t allowed to rest in peace. Here are some more. Hope you dig ’em
.

B
OBBY FISCHER (1943–2008)
Claim to Fame:
The first American chess player to win the World Chess Championship, and widely considered one of the greatest players in the history of the game

Buried:
After winning the chess championship in 1972, Fischer withdrew from the chess circuit, and with the exception of a single tournament in Yugoslavia in 1992, he never played competitively again. Because he played the Yugoslav tournament in violation of a United Nations embargo, Fischer risked prosecution and a prison sentence if he returned to the United States, so he didn’t. Paranoid and mentally ill in his final years, Fischer moved from one country to another in an attempt to avoid arrest and extradition to the U.S. He was living in Iceland when he died from kidney failure in 2008.

Exhumed:
Fischer died without a will, sparking a legal battle over his estimated $2 million estate. Two nephews, a Japanese woman named Miyoko Watai who claimed to be his wife, and a Filipino woman named Marilyn Young who claimed Fischer was the father of her seven-year-old daughter, fought to be named his heirs. In 2010 Young won a court battle to have Fischer’s body exhumed and samples taken for a paternity test. The test was negative; the chess king was promptly reburied. At last report the remaining heirs were still fighting over his money.

JOSEPH STALIN (1879–1953)

Claim to Fame:
Dictator of the Soviet Union from 1929–1953

Buried:
When Stalin died from a brain hemorrhage in 1953, he was interred alongside Lenin in a tomb in Moscow’s Red Square.

Exhumed:
Stalin was a brutal dictator whose policies caused the deaths of millions of his countrymen. Had he spared the Communist Party from his wrath, he might still be in that tomb. But he didn’t—during his 30 years in power he decimated the party ranks in one ruthless purge after another. When Nikita Khrushchev became first secretary of the Communist Party in 1953, he started dismantling the personality cult that had been a central part of Stalin’s rule, a program that became known as
destalinization
. In 1961 Stalin was removed from Lenin’s Tomb and buried without ceremony in a modest grave near the Kremlin wall.

After Johnny Depp split with Winona Ryder in 1993, he had his “Winona Forever” tattoo altered to read “Wino Forever.”

WILLIAM WRIGLEY, JR.

Claim to Fame:
Founder of the Wrigley's chewing gum company, and owner of the Chicago Cubs (who played in Wrigley Field)

Buried:
Wrigley owned Santa Catalina Island, 20 miles off the California coast near Los Angeles. Over the years he developed the island into a thriving resort community. When he died from a stroke in 1932, he was laid to rest on the island, at the base of a memorial tower overlooking the Wrigley Botanical Gardens.

Exhumed:
After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, Santa Catalina Island was closed to tourism, and the Wrigleys relocated their patriarch to more secure digs in a mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. The war has been over for more than 65 years now, but the Wrigleys never did put William Jr. back in the tower—he’s still in Glendale. The tower’s still standing, but the Wrigleys don’t own much of Santa Catalina anymore: In 1975 the family donated nearly 90% of the island to a conservation group.