The date is August, 1945, and deep in the United State's top-secret nuclear laboratory
at Los Alamos, a fourteen pound sphere of plutonium sits inside a lab awaiting its insertion
into the world's third war-time nuclear bomb.
Yet it will no longer be needed, as after suffering dual atomic bombings and now facing
an invasion fleet of a million Soviet soldiers, Japan has at last surrendered, bringing the
Second World War to an end.
Over 200,000 Japanese had died already to the two nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
and many more would die in the months and years to come from the deadly radiation.
The fourteen pound sphere of plutonium was meant to be the heart of the third atomic
bomb, but is no longer needed.
Yet the beating heart of an atom bomb would still claim more human lives before being
disassembled.
Plutonium was first discovered on December 14th, 1940 by a team of American researchers
at the University of California in Berkeley.
The new element had been produced during deuteron bombardment of a uranium target- the uranium
sample began to rapidly emit electrons which produced a new element, who's own nucleus
would then emit a single electron and become Element 94, Plutonium.
Originally the researchers planned on submitting a research paper to the scientific journal
Physical Review in March 1941, but when it was discovered that a special isotope of the
new element, plutonium-239, could undergo fission and be used in the construction of
an atomic bomb, the paper was withdrawn and all research immediately fell under the umbrella
of what would become the Manhattan Project.
The US wasn't at war yet, but with researchers around the world racing to discover the atomic
bomb, it could ill afford to fall behind or let other nations get wind of the discovery.
Plutonium would prove to be essential for the building of the first atomic bombs, but
production of usable plutonium was slow- very slow.
It wasn't until construction of a revolutionary new type of plutonium production reactor in
1943 that the new element began to be produced in quantities suitable for the building of
an atomic bomb.
The door to a working nuclear weapon had at last been opened, and it would never be closed
again.
By summer of 1945 World War II was all but over, and it was thought that America would
not need to deploy the newly developed and widely feared atomic bombs.
Yet by August it was clear that Japan would not surrender, its Bushido culture viewing
the unconditional surrender demanded by the Allies as an unbearable disgrace.
They would rather go down fighting to a man, and with Japan's military leadership firmly
in control of the civilian government, it seemed to all that a hugely bloody invasion
of Japan would be needed in order to finally bring peace.
For their part, the Soviets were already massing huge concentrations of troops, recently freed
from the war in Europe, along their border with China as they prepared to strike into
Japanese-held Manchuria where over a million Japanese soldiers still waited.
Once Manchuria was neutralized they would then look east towards an invasion of Japan
itself.
The realization that Japan was between a rock and a hard place gave some pause to American
leadership on the use of atomic bombs, but ultimately it was decided that the war needed
to end as expediently as possible, and so on August 6th, 1945, Hiroshima went up in
nuclear flames, the victim of the first atomic bombing in history.
Initially the Japanese government refused to believe the reports coming from Hiroshima.
The total destruction of the city by a single bomb was unbelievable, and thus when warnings
came from the US that they would deliver a second atomic bomb if Japan did not surrender
immediately, they were largely ignored.
Three days later Nagasaki joined Hiroshima in the ashes of history, and tens of thousands
of people died in a flash of light.
America immediately threatened the use of a third nuclear weapon, and shortly after
Japan sued for peace.
Back home in the secret laboratory of Los Alamos, the fourteen pound plutonium heart
of what would have been the third wartime nuclear weapon sat in a lab, now unneeded
for its original purpose.
Codenamed 'Rufus', the sphere would go from wartime use to peacetime nuclear research
in a matter of days, as there was still plenty that scientists did not understand about nuclear
weapons and the materials that made them up.
Rufus, as it was known, would quickly earn a much more sinister nickname- that of the
Demon Core.
The first lethal accident caused by the core happened just two days after the cancellation
of the demon's core bombing run and less than a week after Japan's surrender.
In Los Alamos scientists were conducting experiments to measure the threshold at which plutonium
would become supercritical.
This was the point where a fissile material, such as plutonium in this case, accumulated
in a small enough volume so that each fission event of the material would produce a neutron
that would in turn strike another fissile atom, and cause another neutron to be created
which would then strike another fissile atom.
This chain reaction is key to nuclear detonations, but without the very specific circumstances
needed for an actual detonation, will instead result in the release of large amounts of
radiation and extreme heating.
These initial experiments to measure the criticality threshold of plutonium had a foreboding nickname-
“tickling the dragon's tail”.
This was because the physicists knew that if they were not careful and awakened the
terrible beast from its slumber, they were going to be severely burned.
On the night of August 21st, 1945, physicist Harry Daghlian would do just that, and in
turn the dragon would claim his life.
That night Daghlian returned to his lab after dinner and began criticality experiments on
the demon core alone, which was in clear breach of safety protocols.
The only person with Daghlian was a security guard seated a dozen feet away, but with no
knowledge of physics himself, the guard's job was merely to ensure only authorized personnel
entered the lab.
As Daghlian worked he surrounded the demon core with bricks made of tungsten carbide-
the core was constantly emitting neutrons but with nothing to bounce them back there
was no risk of going supercritical.
The bricks of tungsten carbide however acted as a mirror of sorts, bouncing the shed neutrons
back at the core, which would cause the reflected neutrons to knock other neutrons loose from
the fissile plutonium.
Each brick added around the sphere would slowly edge the entire material closer to a supercritical
reaction.
With the reflective bricks built up around the core, his equipment warned him that if
he added any more bricks to the wall surrounding the demon core, it would go supercritical.
Thus Daghlian began to remove one of the bricks away- the sleeping dragon had been prodded
and though briefly roused, it still slumbered.
As he moved the brick away though he accidentally dropped the brick on top of the plutonium
sphere, and in doing so immediately induced supercriticality.
A flash of blue light and a wave of heat bathed the laboratory, and Daghlian immediately snatched
the brick away, stopping the chain reaction.
Unfortunately, it was too late.
The dragon had woken and in the brief second it had been roused from its slumber it had
already delivered a lethal dose of radiation to Daghlin.
His hand, which initially felt tingly and numb, quickly became severely burned and then
swelled up and blistered over
After weeks of severe pain and nausea, Daghlin was dead, and the Demon Core had achieved
its first kill.
A year later, physicist Louis Slotin was demonstrating a similar criticality experiment to a group
of researchers.
The criticality experiments were crude, even for their time, and known to be extremely
dangerous- Enrico Fermi himself had warned Slotin would be “dead within a year” if
he continued conducting these dangerous experiments.
On that fateful day Slotin's demonstration was as crude as it was reckless- instead of
using tungsten carbide bricks to reflect neutrons back at the core and achieve criticality,
a beryllium dome had been created which could be fitted over the core.
Slotin began to lower the dome over the sphere, the neutrons fired off by the demon core bouncing
back at it and feeding the nuclear chain reaction.
Slotin knew that in order to prevent the mass from going critical though he would need to
maintain just a small gap at the bottom and not lower the beryllium dome entirely- this
would allow just enough neutrons to escape.
Thus Slotin used a screwdriver to prop up the dome from the bottom, and ensure it could
not cover the core completely.
Scientist Raemer Schreiber turned from the experiment to see to other matters, ignoring
what had become a routine demonstration by now.
As he turned away from Slotin though the entire room was filled with a blue flash and a wave
of heat- the screwdriver Slotin was using to prop up the beryllium dome had slipped,
encasing the core completely and letting it go supercritical.
Slotin immediately flipped the dome off, but just like Daghlin before him- it was too late.
Everyone in the room received a massive dose of radiation, but Slotin, being so close to
the demon core, received a fatal dose.
Slotin was rushed to the hospital where he went through bouts of nausea and vomiting,
and then seemed to recover.
However within days he began to lose weight and experienced severe abdominal pain.
Slowly he began exhibiting signs of mental confusion as his body literally began to break
down from the inside out.
To make matters worse, his insides had suffered what doctors called a “three-dimensional
sunburn”, as the flash of radiation severely burned Slotin's body, in parts down to the
bone.
Nine days later, Slotin was dead, the second victim of the Demon Core.
New procedures were immediately implemented to halt the reckless 'hands on' criticality
experiments, and new rules forced scientists to use remote control machinery from a distance
of hundreds of meters.
The demon core, which was initially slated to be used in Operation Crossroads- the nuclear
tests set to begin a month later at Bikini Atoll- was instead melted down and reintegrated
into the US nuclear stockpile.
Built for massive destruction, the demon core was once more cheated its ultimate destiny,
but it had already gotten its revenge in the deaths of two brilliant scientists.
Why do you think scientists didn't take better safety measures after Daghlin's death?
Let us know in the comments!
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