*Thanks for watching.* [VIDEO CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC IMAGES] We return to our [HALF-LIFE HISTORIES] series with a story you probably haven't heard before. The Hanoi Incident is overshadowed in history by Anatoli Burgoski, but ask yourself a question...why was the fate of the anonymous director in Hanoi so different?
It completely blows my mind that there wasn't something as simple as a conspicuous red light in the room that was lit when the machine was turned on...
Or even just a door interlock. The irradiator I uses at work has a simple mechanical switch on the door into the room, such that the machine cannot be started unless the door is closed, and will immediately trip offline if the door is opened when in operation.
@@forceawakens4449 For sure. Any place with respectable safety measures the interlock would be a failsafe intended for if you already screwed up every other safety procedure and mechanism. And you'd be in serious trouble if you only avoided an accident due to the interlock. It'd still be an improvement in this case though.
The annihilation peak was the result of atoms in his hands transmuted by the high radiation into unstable isotopes, some of which decayed with a short half-life via beta+ decay, then the positrons emitted would annihilate with nearby electrons.
“assuming that if you can’t feel something, nothing is happening” is such a dangerous idea. i can’t feel pain very well due to my medications (for nerve pain, so yes this is intended) but that also means i can’t feel infections until they’re severe. i had an abscess in my gums for 2 weeks before i realized since i just couldn’t feel the pain. it’s something everyone should learn, that just because something doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean it’s all alright
Oh. I feel that. My brother I swear can’t feel pain. As a kid he would jump out his window onto the bush to play at night. He completely broke his pinkie and only went to the doc after showing mom it can now bend in this direction. And he also had an infection on his tooth and had to be removed. The stinker.
Same reason why we usually do Medical Check ups every few years. Just because you doesnt feel it doesnt mean there is some kind of Cancer growing in you. Do regular Check Ups Guys. There are People who would miss you.
@JaneFlowerbird cancer has telltale that aren't painful. If you're scared, go to a doctor (unless you live in the US, then chemio might be less costly)
I genuinely thought like this once, like perhaps living without pain would be nice, but then you’d never know what’s wrong with you. It’s like emotions too, it’s good you have them, like being sad or mad cause they tell you, you deserve better or things like what’s right and wrong.😅 Idk, I used to think heaven would be like you never get sad or feel pain but thinking about life like that seems kinda dumb. Like be thankful for your senses. 😂
the point is, you would never actually feel anything or realise anything at the moment any stream of particles or radiation pass through your body, nor your body would react to it immediately, no pain, no bite or tinging sensation. Its important to note that the beam dia of stream of particles in small scale accelerators is of few microns to less that a millimeter. If you dont know if the beam is active or not, you would never know if you hit or pass the beamline once or twice, or n number of times while working around it. It is the after effects, and scale of dosage (15:20) which decides the level of damage being done by the particle beam into the body tissues. Then you would realise that something happened to the skin and tissue a few days ago. If you know the beam is active, and you know the path of beamlines, and you still deliberately put your hand into the path, then its another story. But it would still feel like you are waving your hand in the void.
imagine STICKING YOUR HAND IN A PARTICLE BEAM GOING THE SPEED OF LIGHT, and when your hand feels weird a few hours later, you just think, "Huh! Weird! Must be my arthritis."
One thing that has always fascinated me with radioactivity accidents (thankfully not this case because only his hands got hit) is the idea that you could see a flash, know you are a dead man walking, but feel zero pain at first. Thinking of incidents like the demon core accidents where the nuclear physicists were smart enough to know they had just been killed hundreds of times over but having to wait for the agonizing process of their body catching up to what their minds knew. If it were me I’d probably seek ways to remove myself painlessly on my own terms immediately, if I were, say, Slotkin.
Truly horrifying fate. I like to think at least some of them wanted to make their sacrifice useful to humanity, and so decided to let things run their course for the sake of scientific discovery
I’ve worked in the electrical distribution industry for 38 years dealing with voltages from 11,000v to 132,000v and have known a couple of engineers who have died similar to this. An electric arc flash from a fault at EHV voltages can burn at over 22,000 degree C, [the surface of the Sun burns at 5500 degrees C] But one of the most dangerous things associated with this is the microwave radiation blast that is produced along with it. If you are caught at close range in one of these Arc flashovers without protective clothing it is a death sentence. At close range The heat of the flash melts and vaporises metal, clothing and flesh. You receive 3rd degree burns over your body. But the trouble is that the radiation blast that is produced in effect microwaves and cooks your internal organs. So you are alive lying in your hospital bed, covered on burns and waiting to die as your internal organs slowly start to fail one by one. And there is nothing anyone can do about it. The last I knew one happened in the 1990s, an engineer I knew made an horrendous error, [he accidentally left some electrical test probes plugged to a 33,000volt circuit breaker housing] He turn the system back on so those exposed probes became live,…. The following day he went into the C/breaker housing to adjust a mechanism, he failed to notice the probes were still in and flashed over against their live terminals. The most awful thing was that he had a trainee with him and while being loaded into the ambulance he told the trainee that he knew he was going to die.
@@robg521 I think I part of what he was talking about in this situation is that you know you are dead but you feel perfectly fine. No pain or visible damage to the body, just the knowledge you are doomed.
@@SpaghettiEnterprisesI don't know if it's that exquisite I think at the end of the day you could tell people that they have no chance of surviving and they would still go through most of the treatments to try to survive
Two things 1: this man is incredibly lucky it was only his hands in front of that beam. It’s really terrible it happened at all, but at least the human body can survive without hands. 2: “antimatter annihilation” is the hardest thing I’ve heard all day
@@offbrandbiscuit I watched a video about that a while back and went into it expecting the guy to be killed instantly Probably one of the craziest stories I’ve ever heard!
@@alamrasyidi4097that's true, some naturally occurring radioisotopes decay by beta plus decay (emitting a positron from the nucleus), but in this case the antimatter was created by photon scattering: A high energy photon (a very hard X or gamma particle) hitting a high intensity electromagnetic field (like the one of an atomic nuclei) can, with a certain probability depending on the energy of the photon (the higher the energy, the greater the probability) scatter (exchange momentum) by producing an electron-positron pair. The positron from the pair then quicky annihilates with any of the surrounding electrons, which emits two lower energy photons of exactly the same frequency and in the exactly opposing directions, the event which can be easily detected using scintillating crystal detectors.
@@offbrandbiscuitthat's mentioned in the video - the Russian guy was lucky, ironically, that his accelerator emitted a beam of particles of much higher energy which his tissue was not able to stop, so most of the particles passed through without making too much damage, plus I believe the beam was very narrowly focused.
As an accelerator physicist in Germany, I'm used to interlock systems, radiation bunkers, lead fortresses and the like. To think, that as late as the 1990's there were accelerator facilities with so low radiation protection standards anywhere in the world, is quite shocking to me.
It's a nuclear physics institute run by a post-starvation, post-blockade and nearly bankrupt Communist country that absolutely had other priorities than some weird nuclear scientist's demands. To think the country had such institutes is outlandish - kind of like hearing about Zambia having a space programme.
Can you then please explain to me what he's talking about in this video at 16:10 the part they "do a check for Antimatter annihilation", I think this part could be BS. Seems like a simple Geiger counter isn't what he means they used for checking if something was dosed. What does "Antimatter annihilation" even have to do with radiation exposure at that point?
I started watching half-life histories a while ago when I was working in a factory. I quit my job and got into a radiation therapy program. Currently I work as a radiation therapist and am halfway through medical dosimetry school. I can't express how much of an impact this channel and your videos have had on me. Great video as always, keep it up!
As far as nuclear accidents go, the man was probably lucky. Losing both your hands is not cheap but far better than what has been covered by this channel in the past.
Whats even funnier is that uranium is actualy _the best_ material for stopping radiation because it is the most dense material we have. Edit: So apparently I am wrong and depleted uranium is not the single most dense material we have. However, it is still one of the most dense and it is also one of the most viable for construction because the other ones are too expensive or will kill you (lead specificaly).
@@kylehillDepleted Uranium is still radioactive, but the radiation levels are so low they're at or below background radiation in most of the world. Still DU plating and other items are always painted or otherwise coated, but that's mostly because Uranium Oxides are highly toxic (chemically), this also as a side effect blocks any alpha emissions.
On one side, you have some alpha particles and a little bit of gamma rays. On the other side you have lethal electron beams and X-rays. Which side do YOU want to be on?
My friend had his hand surgically embedded in his abdomen like that after it got caught is the gears of a machine at a plastic factory, I'll never forget going to visit him and seeing that.... He had initially lost all but his pinky and ring finger and that side of his hand but they ended up having to amputate just above his elbow because of complications. He won a lawsuit against the company because the safety sensor on the machine didn't work and then he opened his own landscaping company called Captain Hooks lol.
This man needed immediate, aggressive interventions and grafts to begin replacing tissue in his hands with healthy tissue from other parts of his body before the existing, compromised cells reached end of life wear and required replacements from descendants that would be either highly dysfunctional, or not exist at all. Bone and muscle have slow enough turnover giving him precious time to act, unfortunately he decided that if he refused to grasp the gravity of what had happened and ignored it, it would all somehow go away.
@@SearinoxNavras Is that an actual medical procedure? Any idea what it's called? I can't find much about it via google & I thought grafts often fail with radiation damage.
Yep, I wonder what his thought process was....it's staggering that he was in charge, I wouldn't want him in charge of my coffee let alone that facility. It doesn't take a scientist or have any qualifications to know if you put your hands where they shouldn't be, i.e boiling water, acid, fire or anything radioactive then you're fucked, not oh well let's carry on!
The director's name is Trần Đức Thiệp (you can see his name at 13:22). He was and still is one of Vietnam's leading experts in atomic energy, and he is still healthy and well. He talked briefly about the incident in an interview, stating that (after being discharged from hospital and returning home) he initially struggled in performing daily activities but after a while he adapted to living life normally, even driving his motorbike like nothing had happened. He is a distinguished professor and still very much active in the field of nuclear physics even to this day.
@@yeos_angel_ he were in his younger day when safety standard was somewhat lacking, consider that in 1992 communist Vietnam has just opened up after the USSR collapse so go figure.
@@yeos_angel_ BREAKING NEWS, EXPERTS ARE ACTUALLY ONCE NEWBIES WHO HAD TO GO THROUGH TRIAL AND ERROR!!!! Please use your brain next time instead of asking dumb shit like that, jfc
The best series not only on TH-cam but anywhere. The way Kyle conveys the message is crystal clear. I’ve learn more about Nuclear Physics and physics in general from Kyle than I could have ever learned at school because of the way he explains it. It’s just how I learn. I didn’t go to college or anything but I can actually speak intelligently about these topics now because of Kyle. So thank you for making my life better and others as well.
Love this series! These are always so interesting and has taught and given me more awareness of what radiation is and how it works and honestly making this stuff a little less scary and understandable
Being a mere enthusiast who isn't even good at physics, I really can't state how much this channel has taught me about radiation. Thank you so much for the amazing content!
Same, I don’t fully understand all the maths and photon level stuff, but man it’s fascinating to me how a naturally occurring material can cause so much destruction to humans, not once or twice, but so many times
You’re walking down the street when you see a guy with pirate hooks to replace his hands. He tells you his old hands were annihilated by anti-matter because he decided to mess with radioactive material without any precautions because he’s just that fearless. This is not a guy you mess with.
I can't get enough of Half-Life History episodes. So fascinating and scarily engaging. This series will undoubtedly be noted when Kyle Hill is mentioned in the future.
0:20 I love how the chart has an "Unknown" for the Rad level, like the people charting it all just got tired of walking and said 'fuk it, leave it blank' and just went home.
Having worked at CERN, I can basically tell you that it's like that. Or... More like a "We never checked, didn't need to so far, and it'd probably be annoyingly expensive to do so :P" Trust me, the radiation safety down there is a LOT better than this though.
I thought I had somehow seen this video already, and then I realized I was just remembering the Anatoli Burgorski video. If I had a nickel for every time somebody stuck a body part in a particle accelerator I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice 😅
You may have seen the video from Plainly Difficult! about two years ago "A Brief History of: The Hanoi Electron Accelerator Accident (Documentary)" He includes the sources so you can read the reports. EDIT: There is a lot more info in PD's video and since he links to the reports, you can see it was more 'spicy' than this video makes it out. Also the director's name is known and appears in some of the photos.
Yeah, I thought this question was already answered by Comrade Bugorski. Please tell me this wasn't a "Hold m'beer" moment! EDIT: Having just watched the vid, I can safely conclude that the way the director handled his irradiation was infinitely more stupid than any "Hold m'beer" moment could ever hope to achieve. 🤦
Wow, I live close by this institute and still passing by frequently, didn't know such accident happened there until now. Thanks you a lot for the information
I don’t rewatch TV shows, I just watch half-life histories on repeat. I have no idea why, but this is my comfort series. (Definitely has something to do with the immaculate craftsmanship)
Watching Kyle's videos, and the manner in which he presents all of the information that he does has made it very difficult to watch almost all of the other creators out there. Like you, I go back and watch them time and time again - sometimes picking up little tidbits that I missed the first time.
"I can't read the manual. There's nothing in the room to tell me if the machine is on. We have no sensors to tell me if I'm being blasted with radiation anywhere in the facility. Maybe we should be cautious and think about this....nah, FIRE IT UP!"
@@brothercoconut6599 As if they would. All this stuff was specified in soviet manuals as well, and they also had all needed systems (even if they were not well maintained - watch another particle accelerator episode).
Do you remember that giant job fair America through the Vietnam job fair they spent a lot of money to get all these things built in Vietnam during the job fair like the deep sea port and the big are strips and now they have a lot of commercial money there and not too many concerns about OSHA or safety.
My dad worked there and that case was famous. His motorbike later transformed to be used with his left hand. My dad was the one who brought by him self the box containing radioactive material from that institute to another one in Dalat by train. There is another case when a scientist fell on stares while bringing a big acid tank with another in the Chemical Institute.
The cabling and ducting in the "maze" (or labyrinth as we often call it in the industry) can be an absolute nightmare to deal with sometimes! The large coax and SWA cables can be awful to route and often require whole sections of the concrete blocks to be removed in order to install them...
i mean... the scientist himself took almost a month to look for help... that tells you a lot about their safety and health standards.. a scientist who studied particle accelerators decided to go "nah, ill be fine"
Great video as always. It scary how all the doctors and scientists involved is so calm when someone hand was radiated like this and just treat it like minor inconvenience 😂
Incredibly amazing and educational video, I'm Vietnamese and didn't even know about this incident until you talked about it. Thank you for providing an in depth, interesting and educational video, I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am learning about this!
I find it hilarious that I got an ad saying “if your happy and you know it clap your hands” right when you said the scientist lost both of his hands. The TH-cam algorithm has a fucked up sense of humor and I’m all here for it
1992 is literally just one year after Vietnam's economy started to take off. The poor equipment and protections for science were not something new, and back then they probably received very little budget. The crazy thing is this incident is literally unknown by the population. The news definitely tried to hide it as much as they could.
@@imbutters1468 Same here. My co-worker watched this video and told me about it. My first reaction was thinking " we dont have a particle accelerator. Must be very recent". Nope, 1992.
tbf, it probably wasn't being hidden, one person slowly battling a disease that ultimately took 8 of their fingers isn't much of a news story. Even being due to a particle accelerator, I imagine the cultural understanding in the world in 1992 of particle accelerators was extremely low, no less a developing country.
@@BotWhisperer wtf was he supposed to do? It's old Vietnam, hospitals won't be able to do shit about an irradiated limb other than just amputating it. So he just accepted his faith and went home
I work with nuclear submarines and I absolutely LOVE these videos. Very much brings perspective and grounds thought processes of normal everyday work upon a nuclear plant and is an important reminder of why there are such stringent work controls and standards where I work. Thank you for the educational and entertaining videos!
He dismissed his hand issues as arthritus after knowing he'd been irradiated in the hands? That is the craziest part of this story. If it was me I'd be at the hospital in 10 minutes max, but I'd also assume that literally everything that went even slightly bad was because my hands were trying to kill me now. 'caught a red light? must be the radiation. '
I completely agree with you, but I think it's also important to remember this was over 30 years ago, when the internet was still in its infancy, information wasn't nearly as readily available as it is today, and the safety culture surrounding nuclear engineering wasn't anywhere near as sophisticated as it is today. At that time, I doubt that anyone outside the USSR had even heard the name "Anatoli Burgorski" before, let alone knew what had happened to him.
@@bsnow304as someone who spends much of his time in Vietnam, not much has changed. Had someone that was rock climbing in ha long bay fall improperly into the water and was complaining of back pain. Brought to the local doctor and was told to take a nap and drink water. When this person got back to their home country x rays would show that his spine was fractured. The level of " walk it off ism" here is insane to me.
Another factor contributing to the survival in the case of head injury is probably that the brain has little to no active cellular mitosis going on, so is far less susceptible to radiation damage. This can also explain the swelling mostly limited to the soft tissues and the bald spot on the back of the head.
Depends on the type of radiation. The brain is very sensitive to cellphone radiation, for example. Brain tumours are quite easily formed with overexposure - especially with children as their skulls are thinner/softer. I always have to cringe hard when a parent gives their young child a tablet or smart(dumb)phone.
@@Koozwadthere's a quite a bit of difference in intensity and frequency used on a typical mobile device compared to a particle accelerator, buddy. Best, An EE.
My gosh! Can you imagine the shock that director much have felt, knowing he'd been exposed to a life-changing event that has a very unpleasant consequences. Poor bloke
It’s like on BREAKING BAD where Gayle was saying Walt’s blue was 99% pure while his was 96%. He further told Gus “I know that 3% doesn’t sound like much but…IT IS!” I thought about that when Kyle was saying the LHC could only get 99.9999% speed of light.
It's amazing how often both the victims and doctors involved initially dismiss radiation accidents like this as nothing serious at first, and only realize just how bad things are days or weeks later.
I think the fact that whatever happens from then on is inevitable anyway also plays a role in that, there's nothing they can do to reverse the irradiation, so there's no point doing anything except treat the symptoms as they appear, might as well try going on as normal as long as they have left to do so
For the person who survived with the beam passed thru his head, Bragg peak is one. Radiation biology also plays a role I believe in terms of their responding time. Very educational and interesting video captures the basic elements of radiation protection where lot of people in the past was not aware of.
I have worked most of my career in radiation therapy. In the late 90’s I designed treatment rooms for Philips / Elekta linacs and in 2013-16 worked for Varian Proton Therapy. I was very interested by so much of this video and have subscribed to learn more from this channel. I have many photos and stories from my career but none match the stories that are shared here.
Being a Vietnamese and this story was in the 1992, it not surprise me at all. Even though now we have safety measure but due to lack of resources and malpractices, accidents happens all the time.
One question. Why did the director and other staff not do anything until 24 days later, when his hand was falling apart? They were clearly extremely concerned when it happened. Was there just no point in intervening in an irradiation incident? And the annual checkup doctor 🤦🏻♀️ Referring him to a _dermatologist?_ Couldn't he have demanded an expert look at it, if the HINP didn't have one on hand? Edit: ok that was a bit more than one question.
@@destituteanddecadent9106 kyle did explain this in the video. "A developing country, using foreign machinary without manual with local language, lack of safety procedures, lack of resources". This incident probably the reason why my nation atomic technology never develop and probably never will. It a sad but true reality
@@DarkMagicianMan20 you surely do underestimate scientists and experts in this country doing their best for the sake of your people. Dalat Nuclear Research Institute is and will continue to carry out researches and supply radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals for hospitals throughout the country. Just please don't assume boldly the ability of other people based on your limited knowledge and spitting it as if those were the matter of facts
@@minhtoriwt I'm sorry if i offended you because my reply not stated clearly this is just my opinion. I didn't mean Vietnam not have ANYTHING to do with nuclear related research, but we still don't have the capability to build, maintain a nuclear reactor( this is what I mean in atomic tech). I trust many Vietnamese like me want our nation to forward our understanding of the atom. Also I use the word "Probably" so I still believed.
I work at a company that manufactures particle accelerators (3:55 shows one of our machines), and while I'm not aware of any serious radiation incident we ever had, it's good to be reminded of the power of these machines
This really reminds me of the tuna canning incident. People don’t even think about safety until someone gets hurt. And even then, people forget why it’s important, and some poor rando has to pay for it.
Reminds me of a story I heard from an old employer (in the context of a safety brief). I used to work for the manufacturer of spiral conveyor belts - house-sized contraptions that move a conveyor along a circular path, usually either inside a blast freezer or a proofing oven. luckily in this accident no one got cooked or frozen unlike the tuna incident, but it was pretty grisly, so, fair warning: I'm about to describe an industrial accident, as it was described to me. The machine in question - the conveyor spiral - basically operates by winding the belt horizontally around a large metal cage like a spool of thread. The cage rotates, and the cage itself is actually what drives the motion of the belt - there is a central motor in it that turns it so that the belt is not under too much tension (rather than just pulling on the belt, which would snap it). but when you are installing the new belt, it's tricky to get it on - you can't just yank on it, you'll never be able to pull hard enough even if snapping the belt wasn't a concern. You have to get the cage turning at the same time as mild tension is applied to the belt to keep it from slipping off. And because this is a very big machine, you can't just do that from the outside and run around - it's too wide and tall. So you have to be up inside the cage to do this, and you need to have a couple of helpers manually turning the cage by hand, and this has to be pretty well coordinated. Apparently, from what I gather, the install team did not have helpers turning the cage manually. Instead, they just turned on the motor. But the thing about this motor is that it absolutely will not stop turning unless a tremendous force is applied to it. It's a low-speed, high torque motor meant to drive something that weighs at least a couple tons. If you catch a body part between the rotating cage and the stationary frame, the motor won't even hesitate to crush you. And that's exactly what happened - but it wasn't a body part, it was a whole torso. Apparently the person inside the cage and the person on the controls had not coordinated well enough, and the person inside was not fully inside when the motor went on - they were halfway through climbing up. I heard they got sliced fully in half, right across the midsection.
I would never expect seeing Vietnam in Kyle Hills video, not the literal city where I was born and its not about Pho but about partical accelerator accident??? This is so cool
I'm Vietnamese, born and living in Hanoi. But this is literally the first time I heard there is a particle accelarator in my country, let alone this story. Truly each day is a chance to learn something new.
insane considering how old and worn down the atomic institute building is, let alone the fact that such building even store a fucking particle accerelator.
May i ask as an American, why do the Vietnam people write English so well? Every Vietnamese comment under this video has spot on English! Very impressive.
@@kyledodson2992 While it's true that the younger generations of Vietnameses have familiarized themselves with English to a great degree, in the specific case of this comment section it's more about sampling bias than anything else. People without a sufficient degree of English proficiency wouldn't go out of their way to watch an English video about nuclear physics after all, and having a video about Vietnam would surely draw out the English-capable Vietnameses within the population of viewers.
INCREDIBLE doc! I remember when you used to do those awesome funny science episodes like the one about Alien acid blood and what level of corrosivity it could be. Both styles are GREAT mate!
KYLE!!!! I teach radiography and this video is perfect for my students! The explanation of radiation protection is perfect! The graphs are on point for showing the levels of radiation compared to what they will be producing in the clinic! Thank you so very much for posting this content. A link is going on my LMS for them NOW!
This is superb. I am a radiation worker and have worked with radiation safety systems. This video would be much better training for the workers than what we get! No one knows the work that goes into protection- the shielding calculations and verification, the interlocks and the procedures.
This just reinforces to me that if I (somehow) ever get an irritated limb, I'd want it amputated quickly. I'm not dealing with long term molecular damage, thank you.
Every goddamn time i'm sitting in my chair, screaming at my desktop for how simple most of these incidents seem to be preventable from a today's point of knowledge. Yet dismissing your hand feeling 'weird' for your arthritis instead of THE RADIATION BEAM YOU GOT THIS MORNING is infuriatingly ignorant. Ngl, i find it hard to sympathise. Not that i'm not sympathising, but this guy makes it real hard for me is all i'm saying.
@@dimitrilepain3821Not necessarily ignorance. The guy was just coping and hoping what he felt was a psychological problem or anxiety rather than admit the worst. And for some reason, Asians hate going to the doctors. For an Asian at that time, things would have to be seriously wrong to go for a doctor visit.
@@hx5525 "The guy was [...] hoping that what he felt was a psychological problem [...] rather than admit the worst." That is literally ignorance. He knew fully well what the consequences of his actions could and very likely would be, yet he dismissed that possibility, because it made him feel better in the moment. That. Is. Ignorance.
Small correction I have to make. Einstein's equations do not outlaw faster than lightspeed travel. They only say it is impossible to travel precisely at the speed of light. It just is not known if it is theoreticly possible to brake that barrier.
Wow. I didn’t realise how close to light speed the LHC could get. And all those wires! Imagine if one had a lose connection! What a nightmare to fault-find!
I say this a lot but thank you so much for what you do with this series. Using your platform to demystify radiation and the history of nuclear research is extremely important
Thank you for these. As a former Nuc med tech, safety is pounded into our brains and we were not dealing with accelerators. It is also baffling that those literally studying the effects of the X-rays on a sample had so little concept of what there were dealing with. As you mentioned , if they can’t feel anything, nothing is happening…sigh.
Its not totally surprising that they didnt appreciate the necessity of all the structural and logistical safety issues as after all: theyre just procedural, structural and such at least one step removed. What i find totally baffling is that anyone competent enough to actually gain anything from particle acceleration research would not appreciate the need to go to a hospital immediately and instead takes a "wait and see" approach.
I can’t imagine being that guy. knowing what just happened. Feeling “fine” afterwards but deep down knowing that you’re in for probably the worst pain fathomable.
Small point: at 2:41 you have 'E = mc^2 + pc' on the screen, but 'E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2' doesn't simplify to that! The real simplification is setting 'p = 0' (which is basically true for non-relativistic speeds) and then E^2 = m^2 c^4 does simplify to E = mc^2
@@Astraeus.. I'm with @kikivoorburg on this one... the fact that it changes nothing to the rest of the video is itself completely irrelevant: the simplifaction is simply incorrect. Many people watch these videos, and those types of mistakes are remarkable common (I've seen these mistakes on many university-level math exams), despite it being the result of a very basic algebraic formula that everyone has heard of, namely that (a + b)² = a² + 2ab + b², and not just a² + b². So, I think it is at least necessary to mention this mistake in the comments... to be honest, I absolutely cringed when I saw that simplification made, especially on a Kyle Hill video, where he seems to be very cautious and thorough with the scientific explanation of everything going on.
I would add that the famous E = mc^2 is more correctly written as E_0 = mc^2 (where E_0 means energy at rest). To go from E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2 to E = m c^2 for p = 0, you would write it as E^2 = m^2 c^4 (1 + p^2 / (m^2 c^2)) and then expand sqrt(1 + x^2) for small values of x as sqrt(1 + x^2) ~= 1 + 1/2 x^2 + ... - which would lead to the classical equation E_k = 1/2 m v^2 for kinetic energy.
You can go stand in a particle beam at CERN. The north area fixed target beam lines produce pions from the SPS protons. They "turn off the beam" by putting a 2m long concrete block in way making the area safe to access. What the block actually does though is convert the pions into a muon beam. While standing in the beam you feel nothing but it is odd to mentally realize that something is passing through you with the only indication being the flashing lights on your detector electronics. It makes you feel very transparent, like the world isn't really real.
@@lynx4082 Triple spaces after a full stop _are_ highly unusual. His comment is informative though, with good spelling, grammar, capitalization and punctuation. I don't think it's worth criticizing, particularly when your own comment contains nothing of value and no punctuation to boot.
You may not know a particle accelerator is a very innovative technology. You can easily ''Time Travel'' an event that was supposed to happen in a distant Future to Present. All you've to do is to put your Head in a powerful Particle Accelerator. And there you have it........!
My son help put in the Georgia Proton Treatment Center in Atlanta. After crawling under the floors and the ceiling running, and electrical wire through the whole building. One morning he comes in and is handed a radiation badge, the doors are locked, and red light are flashing. All this and they hadn't even turned one the collider.
Wow, gotta say the intro is sick. Also surprises me that this is an incident happened where I was born (Hanoi) but Ive never heard of it, so thank you Kyle for bringing it to my attention. I know a high school teacher there who does nuclear physics, and he shared that he was actually going to study to become a nuclear scientist and helped the country build its first nuclear power plant, but after incidents like this one and the Chernobyl meltdown, the plan was cancelled due to concerns of safety and risks of meltdown. Very interesting video overall, looking forward to see whats next.
Never heard of this incident as well, but you can google the professor's name (13:20 - Trần Đức Thiệp). Maybe this is only known in nuclear physicists' circles.
it never ceases to amaze me how scary radiation is.... exactly because of it's stealthiness and how people get used to it and forget to be cautious around this beast (no shade, i know i would get careless, it's sadly natural when something becomes routine)
Also going over the lack of concern and procedure this sounds like a case of the people involved not knowing what they are doing and not knowing the implications of what they are doing and just simply doing as they are told on the job. This is what a competency crisis is.
Hearing the serious lack of safety controls and procedures in these accidents is always eye opening to me. I remember doing radiography (a form of non-destructive testing) at my facility once. Everyone but essential personnel were removed, even when the source was in its enclosure. Extra shielding was installed. Extra radiation monitoring was done both before and during movement of the source from enclosure to its testing target (the x-ray source was moved remotely along a track). Signage was placed on all entrances, announcements made over the announcing circuits both before and periodically during the testing. All personnel in the affected area had to wear additional dosimetery with audible alarms (our usual dosimetery was long-term passive devices read once a month) both during the tests and when the source was secured. And our usual dosimetry was read daily even though involved sending it to a separate building, precluding us doing any work while it was being read. You don't mess around when radiation is involved. Remember TDS - Time, Distance, Shielding? Well you can't do crap about Time and Distance if you have no knowledge at all about when and where the radiation is. And Shielding can be ineffective without *testing* it with radiation measurements to ensure it's doing what you think it's supposed to be doing.
![[TH] VCT Pacific - Regular Season - สัปดาห์ที่ 4 วันที่ 2 // T1 vs ZETA | TS vs TLN](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QKGUHmA6gwY/mqdefault.jpg)
*Thanks for watching.* [VIDEO CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC IMAGES] We return to our [HALF-LIFE HISTORIES] series with a story you probably haven't heard before. The Hanoi Incident is overshadowed in history by Anatoli Burgoski, but ask yourself a question...why was the fate of the anonymous director in Hanoi so different?
idk
edit: please i don't
i don't deserve um..
the no like situation...
nevermind, sorry for lame replying
then watch @@j.21
Balls
@@kylehill soon i will
Cost cutting, and lack of concern for proper safety protocols would be my guess
It completely blows my mind that there wasn't something as simple as a conspicuous red light in the room that was lit when the machine was turned on...
Soviet engineering baby.
Or even just a door interlock. The irradiator I uses at work has a simple mechanical switch on the door into the room, such that the machine cannot be started unless the door is closed, and will immediately trip offline if the door is opened when in operation.
@@rijlqanturis625ehh i would trust that, the other accelerator incident in this series occurred because one of those interlocks failed
@@AsobiMedio tfw u dont even watch the whole video
@@forceawakens4449 For sure. Any place with respectable safety measures the interlock would be a failsafe intended for if you already screwed up every other safety procedure and mechanism. And you'd be in serious trouble if you only avoided an accident due to the interlock. It'd still be an improvement in this case though.
“How did you lose your hands?”
“Antimatter annihilation.”
Antimatter Annihilation is a pretty metal band name !
@@Kremit_the_ForgBit of a mouthful though.
@@Kwatcher100 said your mom
@@toolbaggers
Said your mustache.
The annihilation peak was the result of atoms in his hands transmuted by the high radiation into unstable isotopes, some of which decayed with a short half-life via beta+ decay, then the positrons emitted would annihilate with nearby electrons.
“assuming that if you can’t feel something, nothing is happening” is such a dangerous idea.
i can’t feel pain very well due to my medications (for nerve pain, so yes this is intended) but that also means i can’t feel infections until they’re severe. i had an abscess in my gums for 2 weeks before i realized since i just couldn’t feel the pain.
it’s something everyone should learn, that just because something doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean it’s all alright
Oh. I feel that. My brother I swear can’t feel pain. As a kid he would jump out his window onto the bush to play at night. He completely broke his pinkie and only went to the doc after showing mom it can now bend in this direction. And he also had an infection on his tooth and had to be removed. The stinker.
Same reason why we usually do Medical Check ups every few years.
Just because you doesnt feel it doesnt mean there is some kind of Cancer growing in you.
Do regular Check Ups Guys. There are People who would miss you.
Aaand now I’m back to having anxiety about having cancer in my ovaries…..
@JaneFlowerbird cancer has telltale that aren't painful. If you're scared, go to a doctor (unless you live in the US, then chemio might be less costly)
I genuinely thought like this once, like perhaps living without pain would be nice, but then you’d never know what’s wrong with you.
It’s like emotions too, it’s good you have them, like being sad or mad cause they tell you, you deserve better or things like what’s right and wrong.😅
Idk, I used to think heaven would be like you never get sad or feel pain but thinking about life like that seems kinda dumb. Like be thankful for your senses. 😂
"Part of my body was inside an active particle accelerator for an extended amount of time"
"Vitamin deficiency"
Vietnam Efficiency
😂
😂😂😂
Bro got his hands irradiated, went home and they felt weird, and he was like "nah it's not the radiation, probably the arthritis"
the point is, you would never actually feel anything or realise anything at the moment any stream of particles or radiation pass through your body, nor your body would react to it immediately, no pain, no bite or tinging sensation. Its important to note that the beam dia of stream of particles in small scale accelerators is of few microns to less that a millimeter. If you dont know if the beam is active or not, you would never know if you hit or pass the beamline once or twice, or n number of times while working around it. It is the after effects, and scale of dosage (15:20) which decides the level of damage being done by the particle beam into the body tissues. Then you would realise that something happened to the skin and tissue a few days ago.
If you know the beam is active, and you know the path of beamlines, and you still deliberately put your hand into the path, then its another story. But it would still feel like you are waving your hand in the void.
copium
@@deepak_nigwalyes your body wouldnt react to it immediately but when your hands start to swell and necrotize you dont fucking think its artritis
Told his doctor about getting irradiated while his hands were turning grey and she was like "you need dermatorogist for vitamin deficiency!!"
He must've been bathing in de Nile.
I'll see myself out...
imagine STICKING YOUR HAND IN A PARTICLE BEAM GOING THE SPEED OF LIGHT, and when your hand feels weird a few hours later, you just think, "Huh! Weird! Must be my arthritis."
Sounds more like denial, to me. To be fair though, what were they going to do with earlier diagnosis? What other treatments?
Then when it start to rot from the inside ... "have some vitamins!"
That's just what having chronic illness is like tbh. It's hard to gauge when something is unusually wrong if pain/discomfort is your baseline.
Exaggerate much? It's only like 99.999999879% of the speed of light.
I can understand the doc not knowing what to do since radiation wasn’t that well known at the time, but, um. His hands are black…
One thing that has always fascinated me with radioactivity accidents (thankfully not this case because only his hands got hit) is the idea that you could see a flash, know you are a dead man walking, but feel zero pain at first.
Thinking of incidents like the demon core accidents where the nuclear physicists were smart enough to know they had just been killed hundreds of times over but having to wait for the agonizing process of their body catching up to what their minds knew.
If it were me I’d probably seek ways to remove myself painlessly on my own terms immediately, if I were, say, Slotkin.
Truly horrifying fate. I like to think at least some of them wanted to make their sacrifice useful to humanity, and so decided to let things run their course for the sake of scientific discovery
I’ve worked in the electrical distribution industry for 38 years dealing with voltages from 11,000v to 132,000v and have known a couple of engineers who have died similar to this.
An electric arc flash from a fault at EHV voltages can burn at over 22,000 degree C, [the surface of the Sun burns at 5500 degrees C]
But one of the most dangerous things associated with this is the microwave radiation blast that is produced along with it.
If you are caught at close range in one of these Arc flashovers without protective clothing it is a death sentence.
At close range The heat of the flash melts and vaporises metal, clothing and flesh.
You receive 3rd degree burns over your body. But the trouble is that the radiation blast that is produced in effect microwaves and cooks your internal organs.
So you are alive lying in your hospital bed, covered on burns and waiting to die as your internal organs slowly start to fail one by one.
And there is nothing anyone can do about it.
The last I knew one happened in the 1990s, an engineer I knew made an horrendous error, [he accidentally left some electrical test probes plugged to a 33,000volt circuit breaker housing]
He turn the system back on so those exposed probes became live,….
The following day he went into the C/breaker housing to adjust a mechanism, he failed to notice the probes were still in and flashed over against their live terminals.
The most awful thing was that he had a trainee with him and while being loaded into the ambulance he told the trainee that he knew he was going to die.
@@robg521 I think I part of what he was talking about in this situation is that you know you are dead but you feel perfectly fine. No pain or visible damage to the body, just the knowledge you are doomed.
@@SpaghettiEnterprisesI don't know if it's that exquisite I think at the end of the day you could tell people that they have no chance of surviving and they would still go through most of the treatments to try to survive
@@robg521and yet hospitals and governments make you suffer through it because unlike with animals they make it illegal to assist in your passing.
7:10 Thankfully the assistant was smart and ran to the control room first and not into the active accelerator room.
Two things
1: this man is incredibly lucky it was only his hands in front of that beam. It’s really terrible it happened at all, but at least the human body can survive without hands.
2: “antimatter annihilation” is the hardest thing I’ve heard all day
some radioactive decay are known to emmit antimatter particles. i guess thats the radiosignature they detected in his hands
A Russian scientist had a particle beam pass through his brain but still somehow survived, shit is insane
@@offbrandbiscuit I watched a video about that a while back and went into it expecting the guy to be killed instantly
Probably one of the craziest stories I’ve ever heard!
@@alamrasyidi4097that's true, some naturally occurring radioisotopes decay by beta plus decay (emitting a positron from the nucleus), but in this case the antimatter was created by photon scattering: A high energy photon (a very hard X or gamma particle) hitting a high intensity electromagnetic field (like the one of an atomic nuclei) can, with a certain probability depending on the energy of the photon (the higher the energy, the greater the probability) scatter (exchange momentum) by producing an electron-positron pair. The positron from the pair then quicky annihilates with any of the surrounding electrons, which emits two lower energy photons of exactly the same frequency and in the exactly opposing directions, the event which can be easily detected using scintillating crystal detectors.
@@offbrandbiscuitthat's mentioned in the video - the Russian guy was lucky, ironically, that his accelerator emitted a beam of particles of much higher energy which his tissue was not able to stop, so most of the particles passed through without making too much damage, plus I believe the beam was very narrowly focused.
As an accelerator physicist in Germany, I'm used to interlock systems, radiation bunkers, lead fortresses and the like. To think, that as late as the 1990's there were accelerator facilities with so low radiation protection standards anywhere in the world, is quite shocking to me.
Vietnam is a 3rd world country. That means it's decades behind and accepting second hand equipment.
It's a nuclear physics institute run by a post-starvation, post-blockade and nearly bankrupt Communist country that absolutely had other priorities than some weird nuclear scientist's demands. To think the country had such institutes is outlandish - kind of like hearing about Zambia having a space programme.
@@tillamook7446 ...still defeated the US military.
As someone who has a short attention span,
Can you then please explain to me what he's talking about in this video at 16:10 the part they "do a check for Antimatter annihilation", I think this part could be BS. Seems like a simple Geiger counter isn't what he means they used for checking if something was dosed. What does "Antimatter annihilation" even have to do with radiation exposure at that point?
Im just imagining strolling into a dermatologists office and saying "heeey so my hands where irradiated and I was told to come see you"
I started watching half-life histories a while ago when I was working in a factory. I quit my job and got into a radiation therapy program. Currently I work as a radiation therapist and am halfway through medical dosimetry school. I can't express how much of an impact this channel and your videos have had on me.
Great video as always, keep it up!
Congratulations, wow! I wish you well in your studies and possible new career :)
As far as nuclear accidents go, the man was probably lucky. Losing both your hands is not cheap but far better than what has been covered by this channel in the past.
Yup. Imagine if he had put his head down there to "eye-ball" it.
He would have had his brain leaking from his ears and nose within an hour.
@@The_Keeper There was a video about that too.
@@MySerpentinehe got lucky that his head was too soft to stop the particle. If it did deliver the full radioactive payload he would be extremely dead.
@@The_KeeperYeah, that's happened.
He survived!
I’m pretty sure dying is cheaper than losing both of your hands.
11:40 I know not all Uranium is radio active, but the idea of using Uranium to block radiation is still very funny to me.
I mean, technically, all Uranium is radioactive, but so is every element from Bismuth or heavier.
*depleted
Whats even funnier is that uranium is actualy _the best_ material for stopping radiation because it is the most dense material we have.
Edit: So apparently I am wrong and depleted uranium is not the single most dense material we have. However, it is still one of the most dense and it is also one of the most viable for construction because the other ones are too expensive or will kill you (lead specificaly).
@@kylehillDepleted Uranium is still radioactive, but the radiation levels are so low they're at or below background radiation in most of the world.
Still DU plating and other items are always painted or otherwise coated, but that's mostly because Uranium Oxides are highly toxic (chemically), this also as a side effect blocks any alpha emissions.
On one side, you have some alpha particles and a little bit of gamma rays. On the other side you have lethal electron beams and X-rays. Which side do YOU want to be on?
You’ve nailed the atmosphere and ambience of this series so well. It just works so well
Hands down, the best particle accelerator story I've heard in a while.
Hands down
My friend had his hand surgically embedded in his abdomen like that after it got caught is the gears of a machine at a plastic factory, I'll never forget going to visit him and seeing that.... He had initially lost all but his pinky and ring finger and that side of his hand but they ended up having to amputate just above his elbow because of complications. He won a lawsuit against the company because the safety sensor on the machine didn't work and then he opened his own landscaping company called Captain Hooks lol.
I’m glad he’s doing well!
That’s unfortunate and badass
Buddy turned his misfortune into a fortune
Did he have a hookhand?
If it were me, I would have stopped after the amputation.
No reason to have surgery putting my damaged hand into my torso. That's just weird.
Man was told he put his hands in while the machine was on.
"Ugh my hands feel weird. Must be that damn arthritis acting up again"
Damn you arthritis!
He even measured himself to be radioactive!
This man needed immediate, aggressive interventions and grafts to begin replacing tissue in his hands with healthy tissue from other parts of his body before the existing, compromised cells reached end of life wear and required replacements from descendants that would be either highly dysfunctional, or not exist at all. Bone and muscle have slow enough turnover giving him precious time to act, unfortunately he decided that if he refused to grasp the gravity of what had happened and ignored it, it would all somehow go away.
@@SearinoxNavras Is that an actual medical procedure? Any idea what it's called? I can't find much about it via google & I thought grafts often fail with radiation damage.
Yep, I wonder what his thought process was....it's staggering that he was in charge, I wouldn't want him in charge of my coffee let alone that facility. It doesn't take a scientist or have any qualifications to know if you put your hands where they shouldn't be, i.e boiling water, acid, fire or anything radioactive then you're fucked, not oh well let's carry on!
Thank you for covering this. I am from Hanoi and have never even heard of this incident so that was a very interesting watch.
Half-life histories are some of my favourite content on YT. So interesting, and excellently produced.
Babe, a new Half Life Histories dropped!
THIS EXACTLY HOW I FELT LMFAO LETS GOOOOOOOO
😂 My words exactly. Then I danced.
"What do you mean overcha..."
The wrong hand in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world
I set aside time of my day to sit and watch this
The director's name is Trần Đức Thiệp (you can see his name at 13:22). He was and still is one of Vietnam's leading experts in atomic energy, and he is still healthy and well. He talked briefly about the incident in an interview, stating that (after being discharged from hospital and returning home) he initially struggled in performing daily activities but after a while he adapted to living life normally, even driving his motorbike like nothing had happened. He is a distinguished professor and still very much active in the field of nuclear physics even to this day.
How the fuck is he considered an expert
@@yeos_angel_ power of hindsight?
@@yeos_angel_ he were in his younger day when safety standard was somewhat lacking, consider that in 1992 communist Vietnam has just opened up after the USSR collapse so go figure.
@@yeos_angel_well I'm sure he's not commiting the same.mistake again for sure
@@yeos_angel_ BREAKING NEWS, EXPERTS ARE ACTUALLY ONCE NEWBIES WHO HAD TO GO THROUGH TRIAL AND ERROR!!!! Please use your brain next time instead of asking dumb shit like that, jfc
The best series not only on TH-cam but anywhere. The way Kyle conveys the message is crystal clear. I’ve learn more about Nuclear Physics and physics in general from Kyle than I could have ever learned at school because of the way he explains it. It’s just how I learn. I didn’t go to college or anything but I can actually speak intelligently about these topics now because of Kyle. So thank you for making my life better and others as well.
Love this series! These are always so interesting and has taught and given me more awareness of what radiation is and how it works and honestly making this stuff a little less scary and understandable
Being a mere enthusiast who isn't even good at physics, I really can't state how much this channel has taught me about radiation. Thank you so much for the amazing content!
Hopefully you're better at it than the poor guy who lost his hands.
❤
Same, I don’t fully understand all the maths and photon level stuff, but man it’s fascinating to me how a naturally occurring material can cause so much destruction to humans, not once or twice, but so many times
You’re walking down the street when you see a guy with pirate hooks to replace his hands. He tells you his old hands were annihilated by anti-matter because he decided to mess with radioactive material without any precautions because he’s just that fearless. This is not a guy you mess with.
Sure he is, dumb bastard hasn't got any hands!
Or he’s just that dumb.
AND now he has weapons for hands, definitely stay on his good side...
Idk homie his silence after hearing what happened to his hands sounds pretty fearful,,
He has no hands, he’s not gonna do shit
this was a really interesting story. thanks for making this video without a bunch of silly gags
I can't get enough of Half-Life History episodes. So fascinating and scarily engaging. This series will undoubtedly be noted when Kyle Hill is mentioned in the future.
0:20 I love how the chart has an "Unknown" for the Rad level, like the people charting it all just got tired of walking and said 'fuk it, leave it blank' and just went home.
Unknown for electronics looks funnier, lol
@@Blackwing2345635 Are there electronics there? IDK, there might be, but I can't be bothered to check, my shift ends in 10
Having worked at CERN, I can basically tell you that it's like that. Or... More like a "We never checked, didn't need to so far, and it'd probably be annoyingly expensive to do so :P"
Trust me, the radiation safety down there is a LOT better than this though.
I thought I had somehow seen this video already, and then I realized I was just remembering the Anatoli Burgorski video.
If I had a nickel for every time somebody stuck a body part in a particle accelerator I'd have two nickels which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice 😅
I would bet is higher than two, but so far we only have heard of these
that is until a third nickel dropped at your feet. though that would be unlikely.
right...?
You may have seen the video from Plainly Difficult! about two years ago "A Brief History of: The Hanoi Electron Accelerator Accident (Documentary)" He includes the sources so you can read the reports.
EDIT: There is a lot more info in PD's video and since he links to the reports, you can see it was more 'spicy' than this video makes it out.
Also the director's name is known and appears in some of the photos.
I've only seen it happen twice
But particle beams are mighty nice
Chuck fried his hands like shrimp and rice
Neutrons stick to kids
Yeah, I thought this question was already answered by Comrade Bugorski.
Please tell me this wasn't a "Hold m'beer" moment!
EDIT: Having just watched the vid, I can safely conclude that the way the director handled his irradiation was infinitely more stupid than any "Hold m'beer" moment could ever hope to achieve. 🤦
Wow, I live close by this institute and still passing by frequently, didn't know such accident happened there until now. Thanks you a lot for the information
The level of incompetency involved is baffling.
I don’t rewatch TV shows, I just watch half-life histories on repeat. I have no idea why, but this is my comfort series.
(Definitely has something to do with the immaculate craftsmanship)
I think that and Kyle's soothing, somber tone is very relaxing
Watching Kyle's videos, and the manner in which he presents all of the information that he does has made it very difficult to watch almost all of the other creators out there. Like you, I go back and watch them time and time again - sometimes picking up little tidbits that I missed the first time.
At most I re-watch Pongsifu or Ssethtzeentach.
The latter definitely didn't force me to say this.
Mine is Star-Trek: Next-Gen, for very similar reasons.
NERD! Ha ha ha ha! Yer a friggin' nerd that's why...... so am I except I'm not a smart nerd. I'm just weird
"I can't read the manual. There's nothing in the room to tell me if the machine is on. We have no sensors to tell me if I'm being blasted with radiation anywhere in the facility. Maybe we should be cautious and think about this....nah, FIRE IT UP!"
They can read it for sure - the thing cause this to happened is neglected the very basic aspect of "is it on or off" before shit happened...
@@brothercoconut6599 As if they would. All this stuff was specified in soviet manuals as well, and they also had all needed systems (even if they were not well maintained - watch another particle accelerator episode).
We are nothing more than monkees with power tools. The more dangerous something is , the more we have to f@$k around and find out!
Do you remember that giant job fair America through the Vietnam job fair they spent a lot of money to get all these things built in Vietnam during the job fair like the deep sea port and the big are strips and now they have a lot of commercial money there and not too many concerns about OSHA or safety.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 and how do you know that they do not know russian?
11:37 It's ironic how uranium is the best defense against radioactivity, but can also produce it if it's the correct isotope.
My dad worked there and that case was famous. His motorbike later transformed to be used with his left hand. My dad was the one who brought by him self the box containing radioactive material from that institute to another one in Dalat by train.
There is another case when a scientist fell on stares while bringing a big acid tank with another in the Chemical Institute.
The cabling and ducting in the "maze" (or labyrinth as we often call it in the industry) can be an absolute nightmare to deal with sometimes! The large coax and SWA cables can be awful to route and often require whole sections of the concrete blocks to be removed in order to install them...
and worse, depending on the cabling the angles may be limited, requiring more complex duct designs.
i mean... the scientist himself took almost a month to look for help...
that tells you a lot about their safety and health standards..
a scientist
who studied particle accelerators
decided to go "nah, ill be fine"
To be fair it's not like it would have done much
Guy really did a gojo
Back then when men were real men.
He did tell a doctor about it and they didn't think it was an issue lol
@@chevronlily It fucking would. The faster you treat, the easier it will be in the future, dude hands were literally rotting alive.
Great video as always. It scary how all the doctors and scientists involved is so calm when someone hand was radiated like this and just treat it like minor inconvenience 😂
Incredibly amazing and educational video, I'm Vietnamese and didn't even know about this incident until you talked about it. Thank you for providing an in depth, interesting and educational video, I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am learning about this!
I find it hilarious that I got an ad saying “if your happy and you know it clap your hands” right when you said the scientist lost both of his hands.
The TH-cam algorithm has a fucked up sense of humor and I’m all here for it
What
AI content relationships are weird. 😅
Once I clicked on a police pew pew video and a body armor ad popped up 🫡 I did laugh out loud
@@PrinceIsotDonut Operator? I love his content.
@@gawainethefirst i do follow him too but it was actually Police Activity. That's what was surprising
1992 is literally just one year after Vietnam's economy started to take off.
The poor equipment and protections for science were not something new, and back then they probably received very little budget.
The crazy thing is this incident is literally unknown by the population. The news definitely tried to hide it as much as they could.
I'm Vietnamese and I didn't even know we had particle accelerators...
@@imbutters1468 Same here. My co-worker watched this video and told me about it. My first reaction was thinking " we dont have a particle accelerator. Must be very recent". Nope, 1992.
Honestly if a country isn't well off enough to comfortably fully fund it, they shouldn't be spending money on stuff like this
tried so hard to find news about the incident but the only thing found was a foreign report :(
tbf, it probably wasn't being hidden, one person slowly battling a disease that ultimately took 8 of their fingers isn't much of a news story. Even being due to a particle accelerator, I imagine the cultural understanding in the world in 1992 of particle accelerators was extremely low, no less a developing country.
Bro used the word concatenation. I haven't seen the word concatenate in ANY form outside of MS Excel. Impressive.
Just bing watched all 21 of the hall life histories, bloody brilliant in every way. Excellent work to all involved.
That’s nothing I bet. Kyle can expose himself to a dying star at nidavellir and come out alive.
I understood that reference
I think I saw that happen... Seems I can picture this too easily.
most of that energy did hit the forge though, so the physics tracks.....
Marvel has interesting interpretations of Norse realms. Niðavellir is no exception.
I hear that if you do it for long enough you get a cool prize
Scientist: So, um, I put my hands in a particle accelerator, they've been irradiated AND ARE TURNING GREY.
Doctor: Meh, you just need some vitamins 👍
😂😂😂😂😂
“He need some milk”
no doubt needed some mineral oils
And he just agreed and went back to work anyways says a lot about his brain power
@@BotWhisperer wtf was he supposed to do? It's old Vietnam, hospitals won't be able to do shit about an irradiated limb other than just amputating it. So he just accepted his faith and went home
I work with nuclear submarines and I absolutely LOVE these videos. Very much brings perspective and grounds thought processes of normal everyday work upon a nuclear plant and is an important reminder of why there are such stringent work controls and standards where I work. Thank you for the educational and entertaining videos!
If I may ask, what are nuclear submarines? Those sound extremely interesting!
I love these Half-Life Histories. Quality information, well presented.
He dismissed his hand issues as arthritus after knowing he'd been irradiated in the hands? That is the craziest part of this story.
If it was me I'd be at the hospital in 10 minutes max, but I'd also assume that literally everything that went even slightly bad was because my hands were trying to kill me now. 'caught a red light? must be the radiation. '
And the doctor recommended vitamins when he mentioned he'd probably been irradiated?
I completely agree with you, but I think it's also important to remember this was over 30 years ago, when the internet was still in its infancy, information wasn't nearly as readily available as it is today, and the safety culture surrounding nuclear engineering wasn't anywhere near as sophisticated as it is today. At that time, I doubt that anyone outside the USSR had even heard the name "Anatoli Burgorski" before, let alone knew what had happened to him.
Denial is a powerful feeling. He didn’t think it was a big deal. Or if he did he easily to stupid to understand.
@@bsnow304as someone who spends much of his time in Vietnam, not much has changed. Had someone that was rock climbing in ha long bay fall improperly into the water and was complaining of back pain. Brought to the local doctor and was told to take a nap and drink water. When this person got back to their home country x rays would show that his spine was fractured. The level of " walk it off ism" here is insane to me.
@@Zitsanrael1117 they knew enough to have a lead maze to protect themselves from secondary exposure, and he knew he just got primary exposure.
Another factor contributing to the survival in the case of head injury is probably that the brain has little to no active cellular mitosis going on, so is far less susceptible to radiation damage. This can also explain the swelling mostly limited to the soft tissues and the bald spot on the back of the head.
Great point
So the brain doesn't really grow anymore or something and that prevents radiation damage from spreading?
I was thinking this at first as well. Never knew about the different displacement of energy between types of beams; very interesting stuff.
Depends on the type of radiation. The brain is very sensitive to cellphone radiation, for example. Brain tumours are quite easily formed with overexposure - especially with children as their skulls are thinner/softer. I always have to cringe hard when a parent gives their young child a tablet or smart(dumb)phone.
@@Koozwadthere's a quite a bit of difference in intensity and frequency used on a typical mobile device compared to a particle accelerator, buddy.
Best,
An EE.
My gosh! Can you imagine the shock that director much have felt, knowing he'd been exposed to a life-changing event that has a very unpleasant consequences. Poor bloke
I always feel comforted when I hear that classic same old intro music when Kyle gets ready to go in depth on radiation-related videos
It’s like on BREAKING BAD where Gayle was saying Walt’s blue was 99% pure while his was 96%. He further told Gus “I know that 3% doesn’t sound like much but…IT IS!”
I thought about that when Kyle was saying the LHC could only get 99.9999% speed of light.
Please, check your home's carbon monoxide detector
@@Lucas-yu4buno no, he's on to something here
@@Lucas-yu4bu He's right. Going from 99% of C to 99.9% is hard, getting to 99.999% is even harder.
It's amazing how often both the victims and doctors involved initially dismiss radiation accidents like this as nothing serious at first, and only realize just how bad things are days or weeks later.
I think the fact that whatever happens from then on is inevitable anyway also plays a role in that, there's nothing they can do to reverse the irradiation, so there's no point doing anything except treat the symptoms as they appear, might as well try going on as normal as long as they have left to do so
For the person who survived with the beam passed thru his head, Bragg peak is one. Radiation biology also plays a role I believe in terms of their responding time.
Very educational and interesting video captures the basic elements of radiation protection where lot of people in the past was not aware of.
I have worked most of my career in radiation therapy. In the late 90’s I designed treatment rooms for Philips / Elekta linacs and in 2013-16 worked for Varian Proton Therapy. I was very interested by so much of this video and have subscribed to learn more from this channel. I have many photos and stories from my career but none match the stories that are shared here.
Being a Vietnamese and this story was in the 1992, it not surprise me at all. Even though now we have safety measure but due to lack of resources and malpractices, accidents happens all the time.
Just do things the familiar way you've always done, standards and procedures be all damned ;p Such is the Vietnamese style.
One question. Why did the director and other staff not do anything until 24 days later, when his hand was falling apart? They were clearly extremely concerned when it happened. Was there just no point in intervening in an irradiation incident?
And the annual checkup doctor 🤦🏻♀️ Referring him to a _dermatologist?_ Couldn't he have demanded an expert look at it, if the HINP didn't have one on hand?
Edit: ok that was a bit more than one question.
@@destituteanddecadent9106 kyle did explain this in the video. "A developing country, using foreign machinary without manual with local language, lack of safety procedures, lack of resources". This incident probably the reason why my nation atomic technology never develop and probably never will. It a sad but true reality
@@DarkMagicianMan20 you surely do underestimate scientists and experts in this country doing their best for the sake of your people. Dalat Nuclear Research Institute is and will continue to carry out researches and supply radioisotopes and radiopharmaceuticals for hospitals throughout the country. Just please don't assume boldly the ability of other people based on your limited knowledge and spitting it as if those were the matter of facts
@@minhtoriwt I'm sorry if i offended you because my reply not stated clearly this is just my opinion. I didn't mean Vietnam not have ANYTHING to do with nuclear related research, but we still don't have the capability to build, maintain a nuclear reactor( this is what I mean in atomic tech). I trust many Vietnamese like me want our nation to forward our understanding of the atom. Also I use the word "Probably" so I still believed.
That moment of realization must have been truly horrifying, that from a brief 2 minute incident you know your hands are going to slowly die.
Nah, it's just arthritis.
apparently not if it took him a damn week to work out that maybe radiation could be bad for his hands
Yeah true, I chalk it down to a "this is fine" moment. You know its not, but it's more comforting to pretend otherwise.
I work at a company that manufactures particle accelerators (3:55 shows one of our machines), and while I'm not aware of any serious radiation incident we ever had, it's good to be reminded of the power of these machines
The writing on this video is truly encapsulating….. Jesus man bravo just insane work
This really reminds me of the tuna canning incident. People don’t even think about safety until someone gets hurt. And even then, people forget why it’s important, and some poor rando has to pay for it.
Every safety law is written in blood.
Googled it; shouldn’t have done. At least I know what my nightmares will be about tonight 😳
Reminds me of a story I heard from an old employer (in the context of a safety brief). I used to work for the manufacturer of spiral conveyor belts - house-sized contraptions that move a conveyor along a circular path, usually either inside a blast freezer or a proofing oven. luckily in this accident no one got cooked or frozen unlike the tuna incident, but it was pretty grisly, so, fair warning: I'm about to describe an industrial accident, as it was described to me.
The machine in question - the conveyor spiral - basically operates by winding the belt horizontally around a large metal cage like a spool of thread. The cage rotates, and the cage itself is actually what drives the motion of the belt - there is a central motor in it that turns it so that the belt is not under too much tension (rather than just pulling on the belt, which would snap it). but when you are installing the new belt, it's tricky to get it on - you can't just yank on it, you'll never be able to pull hard enough even if snapping the belt wasn't a concern. You have to get the cage turning at the same time as mild tension is applied to the belt to keep it from slipping off. And because this is a very big machine, you can't just do that from the outside and run around - it's too wide and tall. So you have to be up inside the cage to do this, and you need to have a couple of helpers manually turning the cage by hand, and this has to be pretty well coordinated.
Apparently, from what I gather, the install team did not have helpers turning the cage manually. Instead, they just turned on the motor. But the thing about this motor is that it absolutely will not stop turning unless a tremendous force is applied to it. It's a low-speed, high torque motor meant to drive something that weighs at least a couple tons. If you catch a body part between the rotating cage and the stationary frame, the motor won't even hesitate to crush you. And that's exactly what happened - but it wasn't a body part, it was a whole torso. Apparently the person inside the cage and the person on the controls had not coordinated well enough, and the person inside was not fully inside when the motor went on - they were halfway through climbing up. I heard they got sliced fully in half, right across the midsection.
@@transcyberism1459 Fucking hell.
I would never expect seeing Vietnam in Kyle Hills video, not the literal city where I was born and its not about Pho but about partical accelerator accident??? This is so cool
On Lunar New Year no less!
I wanna open a Pho restaurant and call it “Pho
King Delicious”
You are not original @@sendthis9480
You delivered that story with the respect and gravitas it deserved. Amazing as always, Kyle. Thanks for making the world a little smarter
Honestly the fact that somebody losing their hands is one of the worst particle accelerator incidents in history is pretty good.
I know of at least one death. But no stories were written about it
I'm Vietnamese, born and living in Hanoi. But this is literally the first time I heard there is a particle accelarator in my country, let alone this story. Truly each day is a chance to learn something new.
Didn't fucking ask bro.
@@alistairmaciver4721 then why bother? I didn't even respond to you
insane considering how old and worn down the atomic institute building is, let alone the fact that such building even store a fucking particle accerelator.
Maybe your country were hiding the truth
same i searched for the professor name and nothing show up, only a few newspaper about him and his researches
As a Vietnamese person, I did not know this happened in Hanoi
Tôi lên mạng xem thông tin r thầy thường che tay phải hoặc đeo găng
Xem vid này tôi mới biết đến GS Trần Đức Thiệp (13:20). Chắc phải là người trong ngành vật lý hạt nhân mới nắm bắt được
I'm from vietnam and I didn't even know we have a particle accelerator
May i ask as an American, why do the Vietnam people write English so well? Every Vietnamese comment under this video has spot on English! Very impressive.
@@kyledodson2992 While it's true that the younger generations of Vietnameses have familiarized themselves with English to a great degree, in the specific case of this comment section it's more about sampling bias than anything else. People without a sufficient degree of English proficiency wouldn't go out of their way to watch an English video about nuclear physics after all, and having a video about Vietnam would surely draw out the English-capable Vietnameses within the population of viewers.
I can’t stop listening to Kyle with that deep eerie music. The Half Life series are the best.
INCREDIBLE doc!
I remember when you used to do those awesome funny science episodes like the one about Alien acid blood and what level of corrosivity it could be.
Both styles are GREAT mate!
7:59 That is the coolest most badass sci-fi sentence I've ever heard and it's not even fi!
We gotta steal it and put it in our books
Not even what? What does fi! Mean?
@@Frank-os6gqfi stands for fiction so sci-fi is scientific fiction
KYLE!!!! I teach radiography and this video is perfect for my students! The explanation of radiation protection is perfect! The graphs are on point for showing the levels of radiation compared to what they will be producing in the clinic! Thank you so very much for posting this content.
A link is going on my LMS for them NOW!
You seem like such a passionate teacher! We need more like you !
I think you meant "radiology", not radiography
@@thetruthisoutthere5173 No. I meant RADIOGRAPHY. There is a difference. I promise.
@@lays_bbq_chips6299 Thank you! I can honestly say I do not hear that very often. It means a lot to me.
Man I hope I as passionate as you when I become a professor. I know my students wouldn’t be with the “hellfire” that is math.
This is superb. I am a radiation worker and have worked with radiation safety systems. This video would be much better training for the workers than what we get! No one knows the work that goes into protection- the shielding calculations and verification, the interlocks and the procedures.
Man that’s terrifying but I gotta say I feel like I need to start a death metal band called Antimatter Annihilation now
This just reinforces to me that if I (somehow) ever get an irritated limb, I'd want it amputated quickly. I'm not dealing with long term molecular damage, thank you.
You will be very lucky with limb. Most of these injuries are on body, and there isnt much you can do.
@@alexturnbackthearmy1907 full body amputation
My internal monologue the entire time I'm watching HLH:
"aaaaaaaaaaah!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"
Every goddamn time i'm sitting in my chair, screaming at my desktop for how simple most of these incidents seem to be preventable from a today's point of knowledge. Yet dismissing your hand feeling 'weird' for your arthritis instead of THE RADIATION BEAM YOU GOT THIS MORNING is infuriatingly ignorant. Ngl, i find it hard to sympathise. Not that i'm not sympathising, but this guy makes it real hard for me is all i'm saying.
@@dimitrilepain3821bro was subscribed to WishfulThinkingProMax
@@dimitrilepain3821Not necessarily ignorance. The guy was just coping and hoping what he felt was a psychological problem or anxiety rather than admit the worst.
And for some reason, Asians hate going to the doctors. For an Asian at that time, things would have to be seriously wrong to go for a doctor visit.
@@hx5525 "The guy was [...] hoping that what he felt was a psychological problem [...] rather than admit the worst."
That is literally ignorance. He knew fully well what the consequences of his actions could and very likely would be, yet he dismissed that possibility, because it made him feel better in the moment. That. Is. Ignorance.
Small correction I have to make. Einstein's equations do not outlaw faster than lightspeed travel. They only say it is impossible to travel precisely at the speed of light. It just is not known if it is theoreticly possible to brake that barrier.
this blows my mind with this kind of work grind.
The intro is so cool!
It's good right!?
Wholeheartedly agree!
It is really good! Was it Thorsten Denk who made it or MR. Mass who made it? @@kylehill
This was actually one of my Kevins @@Kemecgabriel
Its a good intro for sure, but the old intro had a more fitting vibe. Sorry to be "that guy"
Wow. I didn’t realise how close to light speed the LHC could get.
And all those wires! Imagine if one had a lose connection! What a nightmare to fault-find!
Ye
I say this a lot but thank you so much for what you do with this series. Using your platform to demystify radiation and the history of nuclear research is extremely important
Thank you for these. As a former Nuc med tech, safety is pounded into our brains and we were not dealing with accelerators. It is also baffling that those literally studying the effects of the X-rays on a sample had so little concept of what there were dealing with. As you mentioned , if they can’t feel anything, nothing is happening…sigh.
Its not totally surprising that they didnt appreciate the necessity of all the structural and logistical safety issues as after all: theyre just procedural, structural and such at least one step removed.
What i find totally baffling is that anyone competent enough to actually gain anything from particle acceleration research would not appreciate the need to go to a hospital immediately and instead takes a "wait and see" approach.
Most surprising there was no indicator in the room saying the experiment was live.
I can’t imagine being that guy. knowing what just happened. Feeling “fine” afterwards but deep down knowing that you’re in for probably the worst pain fathomable.
I mean all that sounds crazy but i dont think an accelerated particle has ever met me 🤷
Small point: at 2:41 you have 'E = mc^2 + pc' on the screen, but 'E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2' doesn't simplify to that! The real simplification is setting 'p = 0' (which is basically true for non-relativistic speeds) and then E^2 = m^2 c^4 does simplify to E = mc^2
A correction that changes nothing at the end result is completely irrelevant within the context of this kind of video.
You just made me feel dumb.
@@Astraeus.. ok and?
@@Astraeus.. I'm with @kikivoorburg on this one... the fact that it changes nothing to the rest of the video is itself completely irrelevant: the simplifaction is simply incorrect.
Many people watch these videos, and those types of mistakes are remarkable common (I've seen these mistakes on many university-level math exams), despite it being the result of a very basic algebraic formula that everyone has heard of, namely that (a + b)² = a² + 2ab + b², and not just a² + b².
So, I think it is at least necessary to mention this mistake in the comments... to be honest, I absolutely cringed when I saw that simplification made, especially on a Kyle Hill video, where he seems to be very cautious and thorough with the scientific explanation of everything going on.
I would add that the famous E = mc^2 is more correctly written as E_0 = mc^2 (where E_0 means energy at rest).
To go from E^2 = m^2 c^4 + p^2 c^2 to E = m c^2 for p = 0, you would write it as E^2 = m^2 c^4 (1 + p^2 / (m^2 c^2)) and then expand sqrt(1 + x^2) for small values of x as sqrt(1 + x^2) ~= 1 + 1/2 x^2 + ... - which would lead to the classical equation E_k = 1/2 m v^2 for kinetic energy.
You can go stand in a particle beam at CERN. The north area fixed target beam lines produce pions from the SPS protons. They "turn off the beam" by putting a 2m long concrete block in way making the area safe to access. What the block actually does though is convert the pions into a muon beam. While standing in the beam you feel nothing but it is odd to mentally realize that something is passing through you with the only indication being the flashing lights on your detector electronics. It makes you feel very transparent, like the world isn't really real.
Please stop putting that many spaces after sentences it's an eyesore
cope and seethe @@lynx4082
@@lynx4082I hope you can cope and not suffer long term damage.
@TheHesseJames didn’t you hear him, you monster? His eyes are sore. That’s irreparable damage for sure.
@@lynx4082 Triple spaces after a full stop _are_ highly unusual. His comment is informative though, with good spelling, grammar, capitalization and punctuation. I don't think it's worth criticizing, particularly when your own comment contains nothing of value and no punctuation to boot.
You may not know a particle accelerator is a very innovative technology. You can easily ''Time Travel'' an event that was supposed to happen in a distant Future to Present. All you've to do is to put your Head in a powerful Particle Accelerator. And there you have it........!
My son help put in the Georgia Proton Treatment Center in Atlanta. After crawling under the floors and the ceiling running, and electrical wire through the whole building. One morning he comes in and is handed a radiation badge, the doors are locked, and red light are flashing. All this and they hadn't even turned one the collider.
"... Assuming that if you can't feel something, nothing is happening." Shivers!
Exactly what I told my girlfriend.
The fact that he’s still alive and well with many awards for his researches amazed me. Making the survival rate of this incident is still 100%.
'tis just a flesh wound, literally. He's a well-respected professor, no doubt.
We miss your old superhero videos! Your recent work has been maximum quality!
4:28 more like "bye hands"
I was SO ready to type this same comment only to find this one first 😔
Wow, gotta say the intro is sick. Also surprises me that this is an incident happened where I was born (Hanoi) but Ive never heard of it, so thank you Kyle for bringing it to my attention.
I know a high school teacher there who does nuclear physics, and he shared that he was actually going to study to become a nuclear scientist and helped the country build its first nuclear power plant, but after incidents like this one and the Chernobyl meltdown, the plan was cancelled due to concerns of safety and risks of meltdown.
Very interesting video overall, looking forward to see whats next.
Never heard of this incident as well, but you can google the professor's name (13:20 - Trần Đức Thiệp). Maybe this is only known in nuclear physicists' circles.
it never ceases to amaze me how scary radiation is.... exactly because of it's stealthiness
and how people get used to it and forget to be cautious around this beast
(no shade, i know i would get careless, it's sadly natural when something becomes routine)
Imagine going back to work but this time without both arms. Be safe out there
I hate when that happens. inconvenient.
Also going over the lack of concern and procedure this sounds like a case of the people involved not knowing what they are doing and not knowing the implications of what they are doing and just simply doing as they are told on the job.
This is what a competency crisis is.
Hearing the serious lack of safety controls and procedures in these accidents is always eye opening to me. I remember doing radiography (a form of non-destructive testing) at my facility once. Everyone but essential personnel were removed, even when the source was in its enclosure. Extra shielding was installed. Extra radiation monitoring was done both before and during movement of the source from enclosure to its testing target (the x-ray source was moved remotely along a track). Signage was placed on all entrances, announcements made over the announcing circuits both before and periodically during the testing. All personnel in the affected area had to wear additional dosimetery with audible alarms (our usual dosimetery was long-term passive devices read once a month) both during the tests and when the source was secured. And our usual dosimetry was read daily even though involved sending it to a separate building, precluding us doing any work while it was being read.
You don't mess around when radiation is involved. Remember TDS - Time, Distance, Shielding? Well you can't do crap about Time and Distance if you have no knowledge at all about when and where the radiation is. And Shielding can be ineffective without *testing* it with radiation measurements to ensure it's doing what you think it's supposed to be doing.
Love this series, great stuff!
Beautifully explained and delicately stated. Well done.