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Physics (mander.xyz)
submitted 6 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[-] Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 8 points 6 months ago

What's the middle bottom one?

[-] Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 21 points 6 months ago

That orb in the middle of the apparatus is The Demon Core, a piece of plutonium produced during the Manhattan Project, for a third nuke which was never needed. So it was used for criticality experiments, which is where those hemispheres come in.

Anyway, in those experiments it was key in a few accidents, which caused the deaths by radiation of several researchers. After the later bout of experiments, the core was scrapped.

A little more reading in case you're interested

[-] Patches@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Idk how you can include all this but not the Kyle Hill documentary

https://youtu.be/aFlromB6SnU

[-] Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Good point, thanks for pointing to it.

(Also, pro tip: take off that ?si=... stuff from your link, that's tracking tags)

this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
798 points (98.3% liked)

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