This one wasn't due to a screwdriver this one was a genuine accident and the guy dropped a brick and it happened to seal things off so it went critical he did also happen to knock it off so it would stop so he saved pretty much everyone who came anywhere near that place except obviously himself it was the next guy who was being a dumbass and instead of using the apparatus as it's supposed to be used which is simply just slowly lowering a device and using little wedge spacers to ensure it doesn't close too much he used a screwdriver and didn't even use the dangling device that was meant to be used in the experiments and yeah basically between the wedges and the dangly thing that should have been two aspects of safety which were explicitly ignored because he placed the shielding with his hands and used a screwdriver as his wedge which the screwdriver would have been fine if he was using the top lift part
Even as deadly as it was the way that the scientists experimented with it literally with a screwdriver has made it one of the most prolific memes in the nuclear physics community
@@veramae4098 Marie Curie died of constant exposure to radioactive materials and many items in her office were so contaminated that they had to be sealed in lead. The point is, it takes a while to understand just how dangerous things can be. The evolution of science is a dangerous game that has claimed many lives. But those sacrifices typically help the next generation understand what NOT to do, and therefore help advance the sciences even further. TL:DR "shit happens"
We named a giant cooler fridge at the bakery I worked at “Rufus” it always really confused the newbies when they’d hear “oh yeah, just go put that in Rufus” lol
So menacingly radioactive that I'm worried about Hank standing too close to the photo of it over his shoulder. *****Edit: Told you so. P.p.s. Sorry for the edit Hank, the comic in me had to get it out. We love you, and I'm glad youre on the mend. Happy spooky season.
What bothers me is the government labelling Slottin as a hero for the way he reacted when things went South when he was the one to cause the whole thing to begin with
The “Also Slotting: Well….” made me laugh so hard I choked on a handful of skittles I was eating. I was almost the Demon Core’s 3rd Victim by proxy Skittle. I even saw a blue flash. Turned out it was just one of the blue Tropical Skittles I had lodged in my windpipe firing across the room though.
Thanks to Kyle, I learned that part of the cause of the chain reaction was the scientist's thumb in the hole of the top hemisphere, providing just that tiny bit more containment.
It's amazing how the second guy probably knew about the previous incident and yet still trying to nonchalantly edging the core with A FUCKING SCREWDRIVER.
@@EthanH1 McDanzy is referring to the second incident that Hank mentions involving the demon core. Even after the death of the first guy, another scientist decided he didn't need to bother with safety gear and tried to manipulate the two halves of the core with a screwdriver, causing a second supercriticality incident and his own death.
@@invocalyptic8796 It seems a bit weird to talk about the second video in the comments of the first. With how many people are doing it, I find this spookier than the actual video.
@@EthanH1 I don't really see how it's weird to discuss two events that are so closely related. If it was a video about Michael Schumacher's Formula 1 career and people in the comments were discussing his skiing accident would you find that weird?
@@invocalyptic8796 I find it weird because they're coming back to this older video to discuss the new one. Why? Who does that? It's just bizarre behavior that I don't think I've seen before.
Reminder that the flash of blue light wasn't visible light emanating from the sphere. What happened was the radiation was so intense that as it travelled through their eyes, their ocular fluid slowed the radioactive particles down enough that the kinetic energy lost in the radiation was converted into blue light. It was their eyes that made the flash of blue light, not the demon core.
Was Daghlian studied upon closer inspection after the incident? Did he report his contamination to the scientific community? Is Plutonium contamination “contagious”?
Hey, uh.... as someone who has seen, oh I dunno... _any_ sci-fy movie; if you have a big scary ball, which you got from a nuclear weapons program, called "the demon core" - _don't do experiments on it!_
@@borttorbbq2556 refusing to follow safety protocols cause you think your so good at your job and then fucking up and killing you and your peers really sounds like something a jackass would do
@Eye I don't know why you gave me this link or how it relates to what I said but hey those look tasty. If you're implying that the people that got hit with radiation from the demon core were fried like potato wedges then haha funny. Lol
There’s something special about getting the info from hank. I’ll have to deep dive on the subject some time and check out the Kyle hill video, but this comment was made with some humor behind it 😋
If you’re smart enough to calculate if you’ve received enough radiation to cause poisoning, injecting a half gallon of morphine within 48 hours is your best option. Death from radiation poisoning is one of the absolute worst ways to go. The issue lies in the end stages. Your circulatory system is so damaged that it cannot transfer pain killing medication throughout the body. It is truly horrifying. I cannot imagine what he went through.
This happened in Los Alamos!! Literally right down the walking path from the Smith's MarketPlace that I worked at!! There's a memorial from the building that used to stand there! The other life it took was the MP security that was outside keeping watch! Where this happened was called the Omega Site and used to walk to it on my lunch breaks! I was born in Los Alamos and my mom was pregnant with me when she worked at TA 55 which is where they handled all the Plutonium among other stuff! Love this history of where I live, not just modern but overall!!
I'm really enjoying the delivery on these Spooky Science segments. Because these are also, in a very real way, historical tragedies involving real deaths, the somber tone feels appropriate, and yet these are interesting, dark episodes of our scientific past. Informative and interesting, spooky yet somber, I think you've struck a really good tone with these.
The best/worst part is that it didn't go supercritical just because he dropped the brick. His hand was also on top of the stack of bricks, and THAT gave it just enough shielding to push it over the brink. ☠️
When I first read about the demon core and 'tickling the dragons tail' I was like 'wow, is this real!?' And now I've seen this subject on so many YT channels, I'm like 'wow, this story again!?'
Your shorts have been an absolute blessing. I love science and I’ve always felt I wasn’t smart enough to pursue any sort of further education and a career in any science fields. Your shorts are wonderful to watch and learn new science stuff. Idk man I just appreciate your content a lot.
The second incident is immediately unspookyfied by both the AAAUGH soundbit, and the comment that the guy with a screwdriver was "edging the demon core".
I love you, I love the content you make, I love the stories you tell, I love the science you explain.. I absolutely hate this music and the trend to use it. I'll miss these stories cause I can't even
Why did it take me until halfway through the video to understand that "demon core" wasn't a variation on "cottagecore"? I thought it was an aesthetic that was just very dangerous??
If it's OK with you I'd like to suggest another Creator. Kyle Hill has a whole series on different Nuclear Accidents. He talks about the Demon Core, The Bikini Attol incident, Fukushima, The Elephants Foot, etc. His Videos are very easy to understand and very informative. For anybody wanting to know more check him out. Thank you for this Spooky Series I've enjoyed it alot so far
You would think they would’ve been a bit more careful with something called a “demon core” but no, just gonna use a little screw driver to keep it apart.
GREAT to see this mentioned again and again. The nuclear industry's combination of brilliance and stunning naivete is terrifying. Can't imagine doing something so ridiculously dangerous now.
For more information I recommend looking up half life histories, it coveres the demon core and many other radioactive incidents and how they could be prevented
The second incident: On May 21, 1946,[11] physicist Louis Slotin and seven other personnel were in a Los Alamos laboratory conducting another experiment to verify the closeness of the core to criticality by the positioning of neutron reflectors. Slotin, who was leaving Los Alamos, was showing the technique to Alvin C. Graves, who would use it in a final test before the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests scheduled a month later at Bikini Atoll. It required the operator to place two half-spheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around the core to be tested and manually lower the top reflector over the core using a thumb hole on the top. As the reflectors were manually moved closer and farther away from each other, scintillation counters measured the relative activity from the core. The experimenter needed to maintain a slight separation between the reflector halves in order to stay below criticality. The standard protocol was to use shims between the halves, as allowing them to close completely could result in the instantaneous formation of a critical mass and a lethal power excursion. Under Slotin's own unapproved protocol, the shims were not used and the only thing preventing the closure was the blade of a standard flat-tipped screwdriver manipulated in Slotin's other hand. Slotin, who was given to bravado,[12] became the local expert, performing the test on almost a dozen occasions, often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots, in front of a roomful of observers. Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" if they continued performing the test in that manner.[13] Scientists referred to this flirting with the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction as "tickling the dragon's tail", based on a remark by physicist Richard Feynman, who compared the experiments to "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon".[14][15] On the day of the accident, Slotin's screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector, allowing the reflector to fall into place around the core. Instantly, there was a flash of blue light and a wave of heat across Slotin's skin; the core had become supercritical, releasing an intense burst of neutron radiation estimated to have lasted about a half second.[6] Slotin quickly twisted his wrist, flipping the top shell to the floor. The heating of the core and shells stopped the criticality within seconds of its initiation,[16] while Slotin's reaction prevented a recurrence and ended the accident. The position of Slotin's body over the apparatus also shielded the others from much of the neutron radiation, but he received a lethal dose of 1,000 rad (10 Gy) neutron and 114 rad (1.14 Gy) gamma radiation in under a second and died nine days later from acute radiation poisoning. The nearest person to Slotin, Graves, who was watching over Slotin's shoulder and was thus partially shielded by him, received a high but non-lethal radiation dose. Graves was hospitalized for several weeks with severe radiation poisoning.[8] He died 19 years later, at age 55, of a heart attack. While this may have been caused by Graves' exposure to radiation, his father also died of a heart attack (suggesting that the event may have been hereditary).[17][18][19]
From the initial intent of its creation, to the deadly consequences of even the smallest mistakes in quest to discover its mysteries, it has well earned the title “Demon Core” It’s as close as we are gonna get to a modern day magical artifact
Heyyyyy Hank. As a chemist the two most horrifying words I know related to my field are “Edgewood arsenal” could u pretty please do a scary short on that?
Dear Hank Green Can you please get your brother to make a video just saying hi to the best teacher in the whole wide world and beyond Mrs. Clough. She loves your brothers book Turtles All The Way Down and she just loves everything about John
I thought he was trying to lift up the cover - a process he had done relatively safely a dozen or more times - but something slipped or wasn't in place that usually was and he got dosed with a fraction of a second's worth of radiation. And that he didn't just die of radiation poisoning. He died horribly and painfully of radiation poisoning.
Would love if you also do a bit of an episode pointing out how public perception of nuclear power is vastly exaggerated compared to the dangers of fossil fuels..
I remember watching the movie about the Manhattan Project in school. This was one of the plot beats in the movie. The moment I saw this was a short about the Demon Core, my brain went to that movie in an instant
Fermi warned them. Used go to Los Alamos with my grandfather when I was 13 but I was clueless and shipped to him for the summer because I was a trouble maker. I knew it was an "atom smasher" and guards with machine guns gave it quite a different feeling than the university. At some point I remember asking him why everyone called him Doctor. He was a cowboy from a tiny town with a uranium mine going to school to be a butcher fell in love with chemistry and particle physics. When he was drafted he opted to enlist in the air force and became a fighter pilot which financed his PhD from Northwestern.
![🎮เกมยิงปืนใหม่ ภาพสวย และ สมจริงที่สุดในโลก [ BODYCAM ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/My3l1owRY9I/mqdefault.jpg)
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Note for self - do not attempt nuclear experiments using a screwdriver
That's the next guy
This one wasn't due to a screwdriver this one was a genuine accident and the guy dropped a brick and it happened to seal things off so it went critical he did also happen to knock it off so it would stop so he saved pretty much everyone who came anywhere near that place except obviously himself it was the next guy who was being a dumbass and instead of using the apparatus as it's supposed to be used which is simply just slowly lowering a device and using little wedge spacers to ensure it doesn't close too much he used a screwdriver and didn't even use the dangling device that was meant to be used in the experiments and yeah basically between the wedges and the dangly thing that should have been two aspects of safety which were explicitly ignored because he placed the shielding with his hands and used a screwdriver as his wedge which the screwdriver would have been fine if he was using the top lift part
Well, that kills my plans
@@borttorbbq2556 oh yeah, I know
Just anticipating the second part
@@borttorbbq2556 i am also not a fan of using punctuation online but for text that long it helps a lot
Scientists usually name things in a really boring way, so you know shit gets serious when its called the “Demon Core”
Its original name was something along the lines of "Rufus," I believe, and it was renamed after these incidents.
What do you mean? I like the names they give
@@eduardomelo151 name 1
@@KrakenManns Particle flavour
@@eduardomelo151smilodon
Even as deadly as it was the way that the scientists experimented with it literally with a screwdriver has made it one of the most prolific memes in the nuclear physics community
I still cannot understand why they were so stupid with something so dangerous. Men and toys, I guess.
@@veramae4098 Marie Curie died of constant exposure to radioactive materials and many items in her office were so contaminated that they had to be sealed in lead.
The point is, it takes a while to understand just how dangerous things can be. The evolution of science is a dangerous game that has claimed many lives. But those sacrifices typically help the next generation understand what NOT to do, and therefore help advance the sciences even further.
TL:DR "shit happens"
@@veramae4098 I'll have you know he is an exception and not the rule. He should've used a flathead.
@@The_True_Mx_Pink in fact, he did use a flathead 💀💀
@@myka.fa.042 Oh my god. I'm the rule.
A reminder that The Demon Core was originally named “Rufus”.
Linux users are demons
"Rufus" bit
We named a giant cooler fridge at the bakery I worked at “Rufus” it always really confused the newbies when they’d hear “oh yeah, just go put that in Rufus” lol
I hear Rufus and think of the funny bootable maker
This is such a great series, I wish it never ends.
Hank won’t mess with the demon core so it will last a while I guess
Agreed. It's getting me so invested!
Kyle's kalf life stories would be right up your alley then.
The never ending story were the friends we made along the way.
Check out Kyle Hill’s half life histories! They’re all about nuclear accidents and have this same dark vibe about them
So menacingly radioactive that I'm worried about Hank standing too close to the photo of it over his shoulder. *****Edit: Told you so.
P.p.s. Sorry for the edit Hank, the comic in me had to get it out. We love you, and I'm glad youre on the mend. Happy spooky season.
@Eye I have been tricked and trick enough to remember that link
@@Men_Of_Culture33 before curiosity gets me would you be so kind as to tell me.
@@linkthegamer1856 sounds like a rick roll. I reported as spam anyway
@@linkthegamer1856 😏
@@firstname405 its not a rickroll
You can only tickle the Dragon’s Tail so many times before waking her.
I was thinking the exact same thing
Elephants foot*
@@HayabusaRyuu The Elephant’s Foot is what formed after Chernobyl. Tickling the Dragon’s Tail is what caused the Demon Core to claim more lives
Her?
@@helltaker6865 she/her
Slottin: *sees Daghlian die thanks to this*
Also Slottin: Well better be as careless from possible
WHAT'S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN
"I'm built different..."
What bothers me is the government labelling Slottin as a hero for the way he reacted when things went South when he was the one to cause the whole thing to begin with
The “Also Slotting: Well….” made me laugh so hard I choked on a handful of skittles I was eating. I was almost the Demon Core’s 3rd Victim by proxy Skittle. I even saw a blue flash. Turned out it was just one of the blue Tropical Skittles I had lodged in my windpipe firing across the room though.
Slotin was the second guy who died. Even after learning of the mistake of the first guy, he did a "Fuck around and find out" moment.
he was so dumb
And he still was lucky. It almost resulted in a nuclear explosion...
well that does it
he was still dumb after the fact. I'd have rather eaten a bullet then let the gubmint experiment on my decaying ghoul body. stay away from rads kids.
Spoilers dude 😂
I am become death, butter of fingers
Good one
😂😂😂
This is the kind of dark humor I live for, thank you 🧈🖐💀
😆
😅
You and Kyle Hill need to get together to present stuff like this. You both can carry a serious tone that just chills to the bone.
Yesss!!
Thanks to Kyle, I learned that part of the cause of the chain reaction was the scientist's thumb in the hole of the top hemisphere, providing just that tiny bit more containment.
Either that or have them box
@@TheLocomono9A classic plutonium core screwdriver relay?
@@somethingelse4424 if you hear the starting bang you have to trace your feet before running
"Ferb, what screwdriver did you just hand me just now?"
It's amazing how the second guy probably knew about the previous incident and yet still trying to nonchalantly edging the core with A FUCKING SCREWDRIVER.
Where does he say anything about a screwdriver?
@@EthanH1 McDanzy is referring to the second incident that Hank mentions involving the demon core. Even after the death of the first guy, another scientist decided he didn't need to bother with safety gear and tried to manipulate the two halves of the core with a screwdriver, causing a second supercriticality incident and his own death.
@@invocalyptic8796 It seems a bit weird to talk about the second video in the comments of the first. With how many people are doing it, I find this spookier than the actual video.
@@EthanH1 I don't really see how it's weird to discuss two events that are so closely related. If it was a video about Michael Schumacher's Formula 1 career and people in the comments were discussing his skiing accident would you find that weird?
@@invocalyptic8796 I find it weird because they're coming back to this older video to discuss the new one. Why? Who does that? It's just bizarre behavior that I don't think I've seen before.
Reminder that the flash of blue light wasn't visible light emanating from the sphere. What happened was the radiation was so intense that as it travelled through their eyes, their ocular fluid slowed the radioactive particles down enough that the kinetic energy lost in the radiation was converted into blue light. It was their eyes that made the flash of blue light, not the demon core.
Oh. That's MUCH worse.
Cherenkov radiation?
That sounds painful
Was Daghlian studied upon closer inspection after the incident? Did he report his contamination to the scientific community? Is Plutonium contamination “contagious”?
@@thegreatestfortniteplayer Yes, yes and about as contagious as getting shot with a shotgun is.
Hey, uh.... as someone who has seen, oh I dunno... _any_ sci-fy movie; if you have a big scary ball, which you got from a nuclear weapons program, called "the demon core" - _don't do experiments on it!_
Forbidden jawbreaker
I wheezed
They literally called it the Demon Core. You'd think they'd be a bit more careful
dude prob had butterfingers 💀
First guy just slipped, second guy who died was a real jackass if i remember properly
If I remember correctly it was called the demon core after the fact
@@ra_0374 he wasn't a jackass he just ignored safety protocols which isn't great and why it killed like six people including himself
@@borttorbbq2556 refusing to follow safety protocols cause you think your so good at your job and then fucking up and killing you and your peers really sounds like something a jackass would do
The moral of the demon core is: don't put your life in the hands of a screwdriver.
Also if Feynman walks into your lab and says "All of you idiots will be dead in a year"? Listen.
@Eye I don't know why you gave me this link or how it relates to what I said but hey those look tasty. If you're implying that the people that got hit with radiation from the demon core were fried like potato wedges then haha funny. Lol
I believe theres a famous quote from him after he dropped the brick. "Well looks like that's it."
it is what it is
well, two is better than the amount of innocent lives it would've taken if it was used the way it was intended.
I'm sorry but my brain cannot wait 24 whole hours for part two :( brain wants information
Watch the Kyle Hill video for the full story
There's only 4000 videos on TH-cam about it. Guess you'll have to wait.
There’s something special about getting the info from hank. I’ll have to deep dive on the subject some time and check out the Kyle hill video, but this comment was made with some humor behind it 😋
@@thejackrabbit77 The Kyle Hill video is definitely worth a watch!
hint, it includes a screwdriver
Kyle Hill's telling of this story is excellent and genuinely bone chilling. Highly recommended.
Seriously; his whole series on nuclear mishaps is great.
@@jcraigie "mishaps" is kind of under selling it a bit lol
@@WouldntULikeToKnow. What can I say? I'm prone to understatement lol.
a demon core, a screwdriver, and a scientist walk into a bar…
Nuclear science 101: if there’s a flash of blue light, it’s not good
A really *really* bad news.
The security guard sitting 11 feet away died of leukemia 33 years later. I don't know if the radiation ended up causing the cancer though
It could be
Probably didn't help.
It couldn't possibly have been that incident 😂😂
C'mon man...
I clearly watch too much youtube not one of these halloween shorts has been new information to me, love the atmosphere!!
If you’re smart enough to calculate if you’ve received enough radiation to cause poisoning, injecting a half gallon of morphine within 48 hours is your best option. Death from radiation poisoning is one of the absolute worst ways to go. The issue lies in the end stages. Your circulatory system is so damaged that it cannot transfer pain killing medication throughout the body. It is truly horrifying. I cannot imagine what he went through.
As horrible as that is, it’s fascinating. Thank you
@@hobbypyromane2.05 If you wish to find out how horrible it can get read on the case of Hisashi Ouchi.
Think wanted to study him as he died as all new
Common Sense: Don't play with fire.
Nuclear Scientist: Hold my glow-in-the-dark beer.
💀
@@Daedalussy ⚰️
I SUGGESTED THIS ONE!
Thanks Hank!🎉😊
Edit: okay, I suggested the 2nd one, this is a good warm up.
me when i stick a screwdriver between 2 beryllium half spheres
The second was that guy who used a screwdrive to the "top capsule"
Giving 'drop the ball' a completely different meaning
Hank being so low energy is almost terrifying enough already
76 years later and the internet is making memes of the demon core with anime girls
You can (probably) blame Kyle Hill for that one, lol
This happened in Los Alamos!! Literally right down the walking path from the Smith's MarketPlace that I worked at!! There's a memorial from the building that used to stand there! The other life it took was the MP security that was outside keeping watch! Where this happened was called the Omega Site and used to walk to it on my lunch breaks! I was born in Los Alamos and my mom was pregnant with me when she worked at TA 55 which is where they handled all the Plutonium among other stuff! Love this history of where I live, not just modern but overall!!
I'm really enjoying the delivery on these Spooky Science segments. Because these are also, in a very real way, historical tragedies involving real deaths, the somber tone feels appropriate, and yet these are interesting, dark episodes of our scientific past. Informative and interesting, spooky yet somber, I think you've struck a really good tone with these.
Oops, butterfingers!
The second incident is even ... unluckier ...
If you want more info on the demon core and other nuclear/radiation based incidents, I would highly recommend Kyle Hill’s Half Life History series.
GUYS IT'S THE DEMON COREE
demon core fans line up
Hank: This is the demon core...
Me: I wanna eat it
Forbidden jawbreaker
The best/worst part is that it didn't go supercritical just because he dropped the brick. His hand was also on top of the stack of bricks, and THAT gave it just enough shielding to push it over the brink. ☠️
Why dose "demon core" sound like the new, coolest asthetic ever
This and the Elephant's Foot are the closest things we'll get to IRL SCP's.
God, I love the story of the demon core, it's like the realest evil artifact in the world, it's ghost story in real life.
When I first read about the demon core and 'tickling the dragons tail' I was like 'wow, is this real!?'
And now I've seen this subject on so many YT channels, I'm like 'wow, this story again!?'
Kyle Hill’s Half Life Histories is a great series on this topic too
Your shorts have been an absolute blessing. I love science and I’ve always felt I wasn’t smart enough to pursue any sort of further education and a career in any science fields. Your shorts are wonderful to watch and learn new science stuff. Idk man I just appreciate your content a lot.
"Ayo check this shit out"
*Bright blue flash*
Literally the worst time to have butter fingers.
Why is your name Enrico?
Scientists back in the days really just said "oh come on, it's just an uranium, just jam a screwdriver in there, you'd be aight"
Hank has such a great spooky stories voice I want him to read me all the Scary Stories books I read as a pre-teen in the 90s.
Yes!!
That's just straight up a name I thought I'd only ever hear on an anime or a videogame.
Kyle Hill has multiple great videos on the history of Nuclear accidents, one of them is about the demon core, I would recommend!
The second incident is immediately unspookyfied by both the AAAUGH soundbit, and the comment that the guy with a screwdriver was "edging the demon core".
"Check this out"
*takes out screwdriver*
BZAAM
This guy: *Drops brick
Also this guy: *Chuckles* I’m in danger.
Scientists really be messing with a demon core like it's a party trick
I love you, I love the content you make, I love the stories you tell, I love the science you explain.. I absolutely hate this music and the trend to use it. I'll miss these stories cause I can't even
The demon core incident was an unprecedented display of hubris and the hazards of science where the safety guide is as flimsy as a screwdriver.
"Yo check this shit" angry microwave noises
Why did it take me until halfway through the video to understand that "demon core" wasn't a variation on "cottagecore"? I thought it was an aesthetic that was just very dangerous??
If it's OK with you I'd like to suggest another Creator. Kyle Hill has a whole series on different Nuclear Accidents. He talks about the Demon Core, The Bikini Attol incident, Fukushima, The Elephants Foot, etc. His Videos are very easy to understand and very informative. For anybody wanting to know more check him out.
Thank you for this Spooky Series I've enjoyed it alot so far
You would think they would’ve been a bit more careful with something called a “demon core” but no, just gonna use a little screw driver to keep it apart.
*Kyle Hill has entered the chat*
Love your videos! Poor guy :-( As a clumsy person who is easily distracted, I'm pretty sure I will be the cause of my own demise as well.
Oh boy, man-made horrors now within my comprehension! Thanks Hank!
GREAT to see this mentioned again and again. The nuclear industry's combination of brilliance and stunning naivete is terrifying. Can't imagine doing something so ridiculously dangerous now.
I'm pretty sure when he dropped the brick he said "well shit" ( correct me if I'm wrong)
"Check this $h1t out."
*Pulls out screwdriver*
*Blue glow and alot of radiation*
"we do a little trolling"
the trolling:
Goofy ahh carbide brick
Would love to see you and Kyle Hill collaborate.
For more information I recommend looking up half life histories, it coveres the demon core and many other radioactive incidents and how they could be prevented
Nothing triggers a more fight or flight response in me then hearing a Geiger counter tick faster and faster.
I just realized i already knew about all the cases Hank has done for these spooky series.
Speaks about my interests. 😅 Can’t wait for more!!! ❤❤❤
same and its interesting because my interests shouldve aligned with what other fellow 13 year old kids wouldve liked................
man im messed up
This is so cool. I knew the story well but it's refreshing to hear it in Hank's voice. 👍
My dad spawned a demon core incident every time he went to the bathroom… damn spicy foods
sounds like my husband!
The second incident: On May 21, 1946,[11] physicist Louis Slotin and seven other personnel were in a Los Alamos laboratory conducting another experiment to verify the closeness of the core to criticality by the positioning of neutron reflectors. Slotin, who was leaving Los Alamos, was showing the technique to Alvin C. Graves, who would use it in a final test before the Operation Crossroads nuclear tests scheduled a month later at Bikini Atoll. It required the operator to place two half-spheres of beryllium (a neutron reflector) around the core to be tested and manually lower the top reflector over the core using a thumb hole on the top. As the reflectors were manually moved closer and farther away from each other, scintillation counters measured the relative activity from the core. The experimenter needed to maintain a slight separation between the reflector halves in order to stay below criticality. The standard protocol was to use shims between the halves, as allowing them to close completely could result in the instantaneous formation of a critical mass and a lethal power excursion.
Under Slotin's own unapproved protocol, the shims were not used and the only thing preventing the closure was the blade of a standard flat-tipped screwdriver manipulated in Slotin's other hand. Slotin, who was given to bravado,[12] became the local expert, performing the test on almost a dozen occasions, often in his trademark blue jeans and cowboy boots, in front of a roomful of observers. Enrico Fermi reportedly told Slotin and others they would be "dead within a year" if they continued performing the test in that manner.[13] Scientists referred to this flirting with the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction as "tickling the dragon's tail", based on a remark by physicist Richard Feynman, who compared the experiments to "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon".[14][15]
On the day of the accident, Slotin's screwdriver slipped outward a fraction of an inch while he was lowering the top reflector, allowing the reflector to fall into place around the core. Instantly, there was a flash of blue light and a wave of heat across Slotin's skin; the core had become supercritical, releasing an intense burst of neutron radiation estimated to have lasted about a half second.[6] Slotin quickly twisted his wrist, flipping the top shell to the floor. The heating of the core and shells stopped the criticality within seconds of its initiation,[16] while Slotin's reaction prevented a recurrence and ended the accident. The position of Slotin's body over the apparatus also shielded the others from much of the neutron radiation, but he received a lethal dose of 1,000 rad (10 Gy) neutron and 114 rad (1.14 Gy) gamma radiation in under a second and died nine days later from acute radiation poisoning.
The nearest person to Slotin, Graves, who was watching over Slotin's shoulder and was thus partially shielded by him, received a high but non-lethal radiation dose. Graves was hospitalized for several weeks with severe radiation poisoning.[8] He died 19 years later, at age 55, of a heart attack. While this may have been caused by Graves' exposure to radiation, his father also died of a heart attack (suggesting that the event may have been hereditary).[17][18][19]
even worse , there is no light its just your brain trying to make sense of melting
ngl, demon core sounds like some lit music genre.
Sounds like something from an anime.
"watch this shit"
*Moves the screwdriver*
demon core is my favourite genre of music
All I know for sure about the demon core is the guy who dropped the plutonium shell just said “I taste blood” before dying in 15 minutes
its like that old saying goes “never play with a sphere of plutonium, you might end up creating an unshielded nuclear reactor”
From the initial intent of its creation, to the deadly consequences of even the smallest mistakes in quest to discover its mysteries, it has well earned the title “Demon Core”
It’s as close as we are gonna get to a modern day magical artifact
Heyyyyy Hank. As a chemist the two most horrifying words I know related to my field are “Edgewood arsenal” could u pretty please do a scary short on that?
Dear Hank Green
Can you please get your brother to make a video just saying hi to the best teacher in the whole wide world and beyond Mrs. Clough. She loves your brothers book Turtles All The Way Down and she just loves everything about John
I can tell that you smell bad
the fact they call it a demon core means they fully know what they were doing and the morality behind it.
Or we are in an isekai
When the screwdriver slips
Awww Who left screwdriver in Demon Core again?! *Sitcom loughs
Big fan of Hank before this spooky science series, these are awesome keep it up.
Louis Slottin the madlad looking at Dahglian and thinking, "but what if I used a screwdriver instead"
Teaser for the second incident in the first image behind hank
Sometimes I feel I watch too much TH-cam because I knew of everything he said before he said it.. except he didn't mention Legos
Infografic Show: "I'm 4 dimensions step ahead of you"
I thought he was trying to lift up the cover - a process he had done relatively safely a dozen or more times - but something slipped or wasn't in place that usually was and he got dosed with a fraction of a second's worth of radiation. And that he didn't just die of radiation poisoning. He died horribly and painfully of radiation poisoning.
Would love if you also do a bit of an episode pointing out how public perception of nuclear power is vastly exaggerated compared to the dangers of fossil fuels..
*insert demon core meme*
I remember watching the movie about the Manhattan Project in school. This was one of the plot beats in the movie. The moment I saw this was a short about the Demon Core, my brain went to that movie in an instant
Fermi warned them. Used go to Los Alamos with my grandfather when I was 13 but I was clueless and shipped to him for the summer because I was a trouble maker. I knew it was an "atom smasher" and guards with machine guns gave it quite a different feeling than the university. At some point I remember asking him why everyone called him Doctor. He was a cowboy from a tiny town with a uranium mine going to school to be a butcher fell in love with chemistry and particle physics. When he was drafted he opted to enlist in the air force and became a fighter pilot which financed his PhD from Northwestern.
Famous last words:
“Fuck it this screwdriver works”