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Ahh,the good old days when we used a flathead screwdriver to hold neutron reflectors apart instead of shims, because nothing makes you feel like a real man (or -woman) from the adrenaline rush caused by holding a core at near-criticality in an unstable setup; should the screwdriver slip out from under the top reflector, it would mean a slow, agonizing death to everyone in the room.
should the screwdriver slip out from under the top reflector, it would mean a slow, agonizing death to everyone in the room.
The practice was called “tickling the dragon’s tail”, and wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened. The subidiots in the room farthest from idiot prime were unbefuckinglievably lucky that they didn’t get irradiated enough to dramatically reduce their lifespan (though one lived with permanent chronic neurological and vision problems and the others encountered conditions likely caused by the event), but Louis Slotin, one of the princes of Fucking Around & Finding Out, died an agonizing death not long after.