Fat Man and Little Boy (6/9) Movie CLIP - I'm Dead (1989) HD

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  • čas přidán 1. 03. 2012
  • Fat Man and Little Boy movie clips: j.mp/1JboFHm
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    CLIP DESCRIPTION:
    Michael (John Cusack) leads the team in assembling the core when something goes terribly wrong.
    FILM DESCRIPTION:
    "Fat Man" and "Little Boy" were the nicknames given the atomic bombs that were dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the waning days of World War II. This elaborately assembled film is the story of the events leading up to the dawn of the atomic age. Paul Newman plays General Leslie Groves, a hard-nosed career soldier who in 1942 finds himself the reluctant "nursemaid" to a group of idealistic scientists in Los Alamos, New Mexico. As the military head of the top-secret Manhattan Project, Groves intends to have the operation run by the book--and failing that, to have things his way at all costs. The film's storyline narrows down to a battle of egos between Groves and atomic scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz), in his own way as contentious and childishly single-purposed as the general.
    CREDITS:
    TM & © Paramount (1989)
    Cast: John Cusack
    Director: Roland Joffé
    Producers: John Calley, Tony Garnett
    Screenwriters: Roland Joffé, Bruce Robinson
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  • Krátké a kreslené filmy

Komentáře • 3,5K

  • @RichSmithson
    @RichSmithson Před 3 lety +7224

    The smashing cup was added in. In reality Slotin was paying attention, it just slipped off the screwdriver.

    • @fatetestarossa2774
      @fatetestarossa2774 Před 3 lety +117

      INDEED

    • @EvelynTheVixen2016
      @EvelynTheVixen2016 Před 3 lety +185

      Should've had another screwdriver as a stopper.

    • @operator8014
      @operator8014 Před 3 lety +877

      @@EvelynTheVixen2016 Probably shouldn't have been using a screwdriver...

    • @Justowner
      @Justowner Před 3 lety +479

      @@EvelynTheVixen2016 They had stoppers, he just chose to remove them.

    • @mariosebastiani3214
      @mariosebastiani3214 Před 3 lety +444

      About Slotin, Fermi said that with his attitude and lack of safety measures, it was only a matter of time for a deadly accident to happen. and this was a couple years BEFORE.

  • @hmmok7680
    @hmmok7680 Před 3 lety +8035

    irl his first words after taking the top off were “Well, that does it.” Haunting.

    • @tommurphy2836
      @tommurphy2836 Před 3 lety +89

      Depends on what his tone was really

    • @ausinasmith96
      @ausinasmith96 Před 3 lety +625

      When you're a scientist and you know exactly why you're going to die and how for the mistake just made
      Damn that sucks

    • @logicplague2077
      @logicplague2077 Před 3 lety +467

      This is after watching another collegue go through the same thing months before, and Enrico Fermi telling him he'd be dead within a year doing the experiment the way he did.

    • @RichSmithson
      @RichSmithson Před 3 lety +232

      @@logicplague2077 also the same group of scientists were doing the experiment too much. As many as 9 times and they were doing it for journalists who wanted to witness the experiment too.
      Fermi said they would be dead within a year and told them to use something better then a screwdriver which they ignored. Instead the screwdriver slipped and some of them were dead within 2 weeks.

    • @codyeakinsbradley
      @codyeakinsbradley Před 3 lety +18

      @@tommurphy2836 most likely stoic

  • @kratty
    @kratty Před 3 lety +6579

    The radiation gifted him the power of knowing exactly when he was going to die.

    • @CanceriousIG
      @CanceriousIG Před 3 lety +186

      Yeah, early

    • @Ezio-Auditore94
      @Ezio-Auditore94 Před 3 lety +106

      A clear example of an underrated comment

    • @veczz2509
      @veczz2509 Před 3 lety +52

      Well, you aren’t wrong

    • @yumyumwhatzohai
      @yumyumwhatzohai Před 3 lety +14

      And they said radioactive superpowers where fiction ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

    • @theduke7539
      @theduke7539 Před 3 lety +73

      Well math did really. Irl, he did less than 2 hours off of his calculations. Considering biology wasn't his specialty. I'd say that's pretty good

  • @coleparker5179
    @coleparker5179 Před 3 lety +3335

    Scientist: *can tell if everyone is going to survive based on how far away they are from the fission core*
    also scientist: ScReWdRiVeR

    • @tylerchambers6246
      @tylerchambers6246 Před 3 lety +214

      the duality of man, genius and stupidity, angel and animal. "Man is a god in ruins", according to Emerson. According to Shelley: "Against stupidity even the gods contend in vain." rlly makes ya think

    • @damshek
      @damshek Před 2 lety +113

      The experiment was designed to be done with safety precautions, but the scientist opted for the screwdriver method because it looked cooler. He killed himself and severely damaged the health of several other people because of that bit of bravado...

    • @willannells6988
      @willannells6988 Před 2 lety +28

      Have you met a real leading scientist? Because that sounds about right to me

    • @kmarasin
      @kmarasin Před 2 lety +58

      The intelligence of many smart people is exceeded only by their arrogance. A lack of proper "Safety Culture" has caused many, many fatal accidents because large numbers of smart people underestimated their own fallibility. It keeps happening.
      I can pretty much predict that within the next five years or so, there is going to be a major accident, likely with fatalities, involving American space flight (public or private), simply because it's about that time; they happen in every space-faring nation approximately every twenty years, and the last big American one was 2003. It could be either SLS/Artemis or one of the private U.S.-based companies.

    • @timesnewlogan2032
      @timesnewlogan2032 Před rokem +36

      “Science isn’t about ‘why’, it’s about ‘why not’!”
      -Cave Johnson

  • @momo-dm3rw
    @momo-dm3rw Před 4 lety +4535

    He knows is dead man.
    Immediately starts to calculate the level of exposure of the team.

    • @lewisner
      @lewisner Před 4 lety +314

      Should have taken a couple of packs of Radaway.

    • @aidanhancock2117
      @aidanhancock2117 Před 3 lety +112

      @@lewisner should of used some rad X or mysterious syrum befor hand too.

    • @Pickles96
      @Pickles96 Před 3 lety +16

      I mean, may as well

    • @brettbaxter7882
      @brettbaxter7882 Před 3 lety +40

      @@aidanhancock2117 Maybe this is where the timeline splits and he's given some Forced Evolution Virus to save his life and hilarity ensues.

    • @aidanhancock2117
      @aidanhancock2117 Před 3 lety +12

      @@brettbaxter7882 thank heavens im in one of the vaukts that has no experiment. Guessim good

  • @xaiano794
    @xaiano794 Před 3 lety +5577

    Officially his words were 'Well, that does it"
    and he wasn't holding it with 2 screwdrivers, he was holding it with 1 screwdriver and his bare hand placed atop the top half. There was only limited radiation until they passed the point of criticality, then after that point it unleashed a massive wave of radiation. They got the colour of the light right though.

    • @joeygill2616
      @joeygill2616 Před 2 lety +58

      What is criticality?

    • @xaiano794
      @xaiano794 Před 2 lety +419

      @@joeygill2616 ok so imagine you have some uranium. occasionally one of the atoms will split, releasing neutrons. If those neutrons strike another uranium nucleus they will cause that other atom to split and release neutrons too.
      If, more neutrons escape the material than interact with other atoms (like they fly out the sides) then you'll get fewer and fewer uranium atoms splitting until it reaches a background level. If you kept them all in, then they would exponentially increase - like one would split to make 2 neutrons, 2 would split new atoms to make 4, then 8 etc.
      Criticality is the point at which you switch over from decreasing over time to increasing over time - like the exact point at which 1 atom will create neutrons to split exactly 1 more indefinitely. any point above this will be a chain reaction (supercritical) and any point below will die out over time (subcritical)
      To achieve criticality you can do one of 3 things, have more material to increase the chance of neutrons hitting other atoms before they go out the sides, make it more dense to increase the chance neutrons will hit something and use neutron reflectors to bounce neutrons that would get out, back in.

    • @BedsitBob
      @BedsitBob Před 2 lety +108

      Indeed, there was a hole in the top, in which he had his thumb, enabling him to flick the top hemisphere off, in about a second, but even that wasn't fast enough.

    • @tamahagane1700
      @tamahagane1700 Před 2 lety +11

      Afaik blue light was never captured on a surveillance camera and excursions happened around the world with such equipment installed.

    • @dylanhughes8457
      @dylanhughes8457 Před 2 lety +38

      @@xaiano794 if I'm not mistaken, they only do that since they're under water due to what's called Cherenkov radiation. It's basically electrons moving faster than the phase velocity of light in water, making a "light boom" of blue light (much akin to the sonic boom you get when you break the sound barrier). So with this core being out of water I don't believe it would shine blue

  • @diegomo1413
    @diegomo1413 Před 3 lety +1234

    This is like something straight out of high fantasy. A dangerous artifact known as the Demon Core consists of two halves. In the right hands, it is a source of a vast wealth of knowledge and power the closer you put the halves together. But in the hands of the greedily foolish, if you let the two halves meet, it curses anyone nearby with a slow and painful death.

    • @mochalatte4901
      @mochalatte4901 Před 3 lety +65

      This is actually a pretty cool idea

    • @me8042
      @me8042 Před 3 lety +10

      Or short and really painful death.

    • @thenumbah1birdman
      @thenumbah1birdman Před 2 lety +36

      @@me8042 too slow a death if you're the one liquefying in a hospital bed

    • @aao331
      @aao331 Před 2 lety +79

      The two half-spheres were a beryllium neutron reflector, not the core. The demon core was a perfect sphere located in the center.

    • @user-gn6jj8qh1w
      @user-gn6jj8qh1w Před 2 lety +4

      You forgot one thing: But either way, you need a screwdriver to manipulate reflector halves.

  • @kuribayashi84
    @kuribayashi84 Před 2 lety +165

    "There is one terrifying word in the world of radiation."
    *"Oops."*

    • @phaub
      @phaub Před 15 dny +1

      Same a surgery.

  • @MrJustonemorevoice
    @MrJustonemorevoice Před 3 lety +7377

    Human : *Slaps a nuclear fission core*
    Fission core : "I am impressed, but you're still going to die"

    • @Slappap
      @Slappap Před 3 lety +457

      Car sales man slaps core: this baby will kill me in 9 days...

    • @verifieduser6781
      @verifieduser6781 Před 3 lety +55

      Hands down one of the funniest comments I've read in a while lmao.

    • @spacetechempire510
      @spacetechempire510 Před 3 lety +25

      So you have chosen death

    • @bluegrassdroneservice8669
      @bluegrassdroneservice8669 Před 3 lety +41

      American: slaps nuclear fission core, this baby right here will get you at least a million kills
      Japan: 🧐

    • @MrJustonemorevoice
      @MrJustonemorevoice Před 3 lety +26

      @@bluegrassdroneservice8669 It didn't just kill them.
      Trash Anime was apparently created in the nuclear fission and released upon the world.

  • @FirstLast-cg2nk
    @FirstLast-cg2nk Před 4 lety +4176

    This wasn't the first time that Slotin had done this experiment, by the way: He'd done it several times without incident, but all parties involved knew exactly how dangerous this was. The core had killed someone just 9 months prior. Rufus, the Demon Core, was dangerous, and could easily go supercritical if mishandled. Fermi actually told Slotin that if he kept doing this experiment, he'd be dead within the year. *He was right.*

    • @coreymunroe8073
      @coreymunroe8073 Před 3 lety +44

      @jeff nomad They actually melted it down and distributed it through the rest of the nuclear arsenal. They did not detonate it.

    • @coreymunroe8073
      @coreymunroe8073 Před 3 lety +2

      @jeff nomad You're welcome.

    • @ericfermin8347
      @ericfermin8347 Před 3 lety +64

      Best Fermi story is of him dropping pieces of paper to the ground during Trinity, noticing the displacement of the paper in the air as the shockwave passed, and calculating the yield.

    • @ericfermin8347
      @ericfermin8347 Před 2 lety

      @Ban this youtube I thought that was Szilard.

    • @jimland4359
      @jimland4359 Před 2 lety +51

      I had an uncle who was a pilot in WWII. At one point he split an apartment with a handful of other pilots who gave him a hard time for "flying like an old lady." This uncle had flown under the rim of the Grand Canyon and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Uncle told him, "I might fly like an old lady, but I'll still be here while you guys are pushing up daisies." and he was right.

  • @JohnJ469
    @JohnJ469 Před 2 lety +684

    "If these two halves come together we will all die. I'll hold them apart with a screwdriver as making proper equipment is for wimps." This is exactly why there are so many movies about really smart scientists doing incredibly stupid things.

    • @squiggles9612
      @squiggles9612 Před 2 lety +47

      There auctally was equipment, but the guy used scewdrivers so he could get closer to super-criticality

    • @neutronalchemist3241
      @neutronalchemist3241 Před rokem +48

      The safety procedures were to use shims, but to insert and extract them required time, so Slotin used the screwdriver as a shortcut. Like many workers, he felt too confident, (he had done that experiment many times, and was already disaffectioned with the kind of work he was doing at Los Alamos) and ignored the safety precautions to spare time.
      Fermi (among the other things, a leading statistic expert) actually told Slotin that, had he kept doing the experiment that way, he would have been dead within a year.

    • @OnceShy_TwiceBitten
      @OnceShy_TwiceBitten Před rokem +9

      @@foxfireman188 Yeah, I have no sympathy here tbh. He personally is why he killed himself, AND those other people near by. Complacent arrogance.

    • @Cockalicious
      @Cockalicious Před rokem +1

      ​@@OnceShy_TwiceBitten the other people also knew what they were getting into

    • @Valigarmanda
      @Valigarmanda Před 10 měsíci +6

      @@OnceShy_TwiceBitten You have to understand the context of the situation here. It was barely just after WW2 where urgency took priority in place of safety and preservation. That and the fact that Slotin had done this multiple times already. His final words came out like he's already accepted his fate when it happened. Not saying it's his own fault, but it doesn't make it any less tragic.

  • @balint6873
    @balint6873 Před 3 lety +120

    Moral of the story: dont use screwdrivers for lifting beryllium shells

    • @cairnex4473
      @cairnex4473 Před 2 lety +8

      That really is one of those things that goes without saying.

  • @angryox3102
    @angryox3102 Před 3 lety +4457

    This scene caused me to have an irrational fear of radiation as a child. I felt like I was going to come across enriched uranium or plutonium at some point in the future.

    • @largol33t1
      @largol33t1 Před 3 lety +166

      It's not the radiation that scares me. It's the arrogant fools who keep playing around with it. And these guys were faaaarrrrrr from the last to play around with something like it was a toy...

    • @N0M4dIC1RST
      @N0M4dIC1RST Před 3 lety +75

      Me too...
      And you know what? I did come across such things in my life. But I wasn't affraid anymore, I was fascinated.
      I am a physics technologist, currently well on my way to becoming a physicist.
      I've manipulated radioactive materials and machines emitting X-rays and gamma rays. I literally have a small amount of very radioactive polonium a few feets from me right now.
      Fear is a strange thing. It can keep you in the dark, or it can motivate you to understand and vanquish it.

    • @N0M4dIC1RST
      @N0M4dIC1RST Před 3 lety +31

      @@largol33t1 I'm one of those "arrogant fools" that dabbles into the dark and arcane arts of physics. Ask me anything. What are you affraid of?

    • @tacit9873
      @tacit9873 Před 3 lety +50

      @@N0M4dIC1RST they fear you might throw radioactive material at them lol

    • @Keithjustkeithwastaken
      @Keithjustkeithwastaken Před 3 lety +5

      @@largol33t1 yep thank god for them aswell the leaps they have made are spectacular

  • @mannyzx1
    @mannyzx1 Před 3 lety +4699

    From the start of this scene, I knew it was critical to the Plot. But by the end, I realized it was supercritical.

  • @playgroundchooser
    @playgroundchooser Před 3 lety +434

    I've been told Slotin received 3.6 Rontgen. Not great, not terrible.

    • @stipuledorange4
      @stipuledorange4 Před 2 lety +21

      Not sure who's telling you that, but it's completely wrong. He easily got over 1000 Roentgen, 3.6 is very unlikely to be lethal.

    • @playgroundchooser
      @playgroundchooser Před 2 lety +55

      @@stipuledorange4 It's from the TV show Chernobyl.

    • @raphael8951
      @raphael8951 Před 2 lety +27

      @@stipuledorange4 its a meme

    • @paulwalker5225
      @paulwalker5225 Před 2 lety +30

      @@stipuledorange4 your delusional.

    • @playgroundchooser
      @playgroundchooser Před 2 lety +46

      @@paulwalker5225 Get him to the infirmary.

  • @joeyblaze2509
    @joeyblaze2509 Před 3 lety +60

    The radiation levels 1000 meters away from ground zero of Hisorshima was nearly half of what he received standing that close to the demon core.

    • @JohnBender1313
      @JohnBender1313 Před 7 dny

      Can't people enter the elephants foot room at Chernobyl for like a minute and only have mild damage? One of the most radioactive places on the planet. But a second and a half around this thing kills you in a week or so. Wild.

  • @ravenwda007
    @ravenwda007 Před 3 lety +3902

    He suffered for nine days so doctors could document radiation sickness. He was a strong man.

    • @abs5721
      @abs5721 Před 3 lety +270

      Yeah, how unfortunate for Hasashi Ouchi though. They kept him alive for 83 days so they could experiment on him.

    • @boltreaverastalos8310
      @boltreaverastalos8310 Před 2 lety +229

      @@abs5721 No the reason why ouchi have to suffer for 83 day is because his family will. they can't accept the true that he already dead

    • @MAXIMUM646
      @MAXIMUM646 Před rokem +119

      @@boltreaverastalos8310 If I recall right, it was also cuz the hospital he was at had an oath all doctors had to follow that they must do everything they can to save someone's life, even if the method had less than a 1% chance of success, so long as it wasn't 0%, they had to try

    • @boneor...7022
      @boneor...7022 Před rokem +10

      @@abs5721 why bring him into this?

    • @SergyMilitaryRankings
      @SergyMilitaryRankings Před rokem +121

      @@boneor...7022 Because it's a conversation about radiation sickness

  • @jonmar4683
    @jonmar4683 Před 7 lety +2720

    got to say, his screwdriver literally screwed him.

  • @darthwader4472
    @darthwader4472 Před 3 lety +65

    Made by the elves™. The ball glows blue whenever orcs are close.

  • @HMan2828
    @HMan2828 Před 3 lety +49

    Honestly don't know why he even bothered with keeping on keeping on at the hospital after his exposure... If it was me I would have put my affairs in order and blown my brains out. Better than literally melting on a hospital bed for a few agonizing days.

    • @aschulte7502
      @aschulte7502 Před 3 lety +7

      they should have administered a lethal dose of morphine

    • @ryabow
      @ryabow Před 2 lety +20

      I mean, that's my plan (I'm a first responder in the event of nuclear accidents). But Slotin was a scientist. He probably wanted them to learn as much as possible from him.

  • @BurgerGrabber
    @BurgerGrabber Před 7 lety +2822

    From what I can tell the real problem here was that there were not enough screwdrivers involved.

    • @lewisner
      @lewisner Před 6 lety +82

      They should have used a 50 foot screwdriver.

    • @danschneider8453
      @danschneider8453 Před 6 lety +14

      siR miLLs
      Or possible lack of hamner

    • @g00gleminus96
      @g00gleminus96 Před 5 lety +18

      STOP! Hammer time!

    • @smartfrenandromax6651
      @smartfrenandromax6651 Před 5 lety +6

      siR miLLs | The problem seems to be either the lack of proper story script writing or the lack of safety protocols. I mean, people just go back and forth as if they're working on a junior high school science project. They even drink on the job! I mean, there is a reason on why some offices banned drinking and working together in the same area.
      It's as if in the original script, someone spilled something, then the whole thing short circuited. But… they need to edit that script, because there is no electricity involved here.

    • @blueskyatfero
      @blueskyatfero Před 5 lety +21

      @@smartfrenandromax6651 this is a dramatization of the fact that this technology was so unknown and new that yes in fact there were no safety protocols. How do you think we came to understand the dangers of radiation? It's no coincidence that many of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan project died of cancer.

  • @Artecus
    @Artecus Před 7 lety +5206

    There's a bit missing from reality. The film doesn't show you that his idiot stunt nearly sent Alvin Graves (who stood behind him) to the Grave. Luckily, Graves survived, but spent one excruciating year ridden in an infirmary, hard recovery. Louis Slotin (Mr. Screwdriver) correctly calculated that he had only nine days to live, and indeed he died on day nine.

    • @MilesBellas
      @MilesBellas Před 6 lety +141

      The situation is inaccurate in many ways.

    • @dragonridley
      @dragonridley Před 5 lety +359

      Slightly ironic that the guy named Graves survived.

    • @Audfile
      @Audfile Před 5 lety +11

      @@dragonridley no he didn't.

    • @baloog8
      @baloog8 Před 5 lety +80

      There were permanent disabilities for survivors.. in ways

    • @pseudotasuki
      @pseudotasuki Před 5 lety +235

      @@dragonridley Graves survived the radiation sickness, but damage from the accident likely contributed to his death from a heart attack two decades later. Though even then his hypertension was also a major factor.

  • @jimmywrangles
    @jimmywrangles Před rokem +6

    Enrico Fermi told him, Richard Feynman told him, and he refused to listen. The guy was a coyboy when he needed to be a surgeon.

  • @Glockmog2007
    @Glockmog2007 Před 10 měsíci +38

    Anyone else come here after expecting oppenheimer to show scenes like this and it just didnt?

    • @ohyeahwhat5387
      @ohyeahwhat5387 Před 4 měsíci +11

      Because the accident happened in 1946 the year after the gadget was detonated. It was BS to add it to the movie.

  • @hellboy6507
    @hellboy6507 Před 5 lety +4595

    Who the hell thought it was a good idea to control the criticality with two loose screwdrivers?

    • @MrSingularity44
      @MrSingularity44 Před 5 lety +1260

      Worse, it was one screwdrive in real life and he held up the top of the neurton shield with his other hand.

    • @nuclearthreat545
      @nuclearthreat545 Před 5 lety +110

      Got a better idea?

    • @VallornDeathblade
      @VallornDeathblade Před 5 lety +1164

      The scientist himself. It was a completely non-standard procedure he came up with himself and which horrified several other people who knew about it.

    • @ramagefreak
      @ramagefreak Před 5 lety +800

      It was called "tickling the dragons tail" and they all knew it was dangerous. But the was showboating... And paid the price..

    • @JanBruunAndersen
      @JanBruunAndersen Před 5 lety +76

      Ever watched any of the many Fail of the Week videos here on CZcams? Who thought that was a good idea?

  • @thenewguyinred
    @thenewguyinred Před 4 lety +1429

    The Demon Core glowed blue when at critical mass, so it’s basically the closest we can get to a real life Godzilla atomic breath

    • @lemono1664
      @lemono1664 Před 3 lety +10

      is there anyway to recreate this and video tape it? i would like to see that glow

    • @adamnouiguer3430
      @adamnouiguer3430 Před 3 lety +113

      It didn't glow blue itself,it irradiated the air with invisible radiation,and since everything wants to get to a lower energy state and more stable,the air emitted blue light to get rid of the energy the demon core gave it

    • @gaecynt4687
      @gaecynt4687 Před 3 lety +6

      So what happen if they let the core for atleast 1 minutes? Will it explode?

    • @adamnouiguer3430
      @adamnouiguer3430 Před 3 lety +40

      @@gaecynt4687 probably not,unlike the forced criticality of nukes this one is more tame but the radiation would be absurd.If you could acquire a demon core or something bigger,as long as it doesn't have supercritical mass you could induce criticality in a very crowded place to kill hundreds,so the fact that it's tame doesn't mean you can't make gredades/rad bombs out of it even though neutrino bombs are even more radioactive.

    • @nycholaus
      @nycholaus Před 3 lety +11

      That blue glow is energy emitted when particles pass through a medium faster than the velocity lf light in that medium.
      Before it comes up, light slows down when going through matter. This is what allows lenses to work.
      it is the velocity that light travels IN A VACCUUM that cannot be exceeded.

  • @adonisparts1343
    @adonisparts1343 Před 11 měsíci +6

    The idea of knowing you're going to die painfully soon and not being able to do anything about it is terrifying

  • @chicagomike4587
    @chicagomike4587 Před 2 lety +16

    He ended up suffering what they call "3D sunburn" - like internal radiation burns which I don't wanna even guess about how that must feel. He was a tough dude and acted to save the others. 9 days later he was dead and that had turned blue and wax-like before his death. Horrible story.

    • @demonofelru3214
      @demonofelru3214 Před 2 lety +4

      Yup and he touched it for half a second. Pretty terrifying really.

  • @faolan1686
    @faolan1686 Před 3 lety +159

    His words at the time were apparently "Well, that does it". He knew he was dead the second it dropped.

  • @03chrisv
    @03chrisv Před 4 lety +1243

    This is a perfect example of someone who is highly intelligent but lacks common sense. I know someone like this. Sometimes they amaze you with their brilliance, and other times you just want to face palm.

    • @gavaldi4361
      @gavaldi4361 Před 4 lety +97

      Had a company commander like that when I was in the National Guard. Guy had like four degrees. Book smart as hell, but for the life of him couldn't figure out how to drive a car. His wife drove him everywhere when he was off duty.

    • @junlee3515
      @junlee3515 Před 4 lety +10

      If he didn’t do that everyone in that building would have died

    • @paulmichaelfreedman8334
      @paulmichaelfreedman8334 Před 4 lety +17

      thin line between genius and nuts. it all goes full circle.

    • @razorfett147
      @razorfett147 Před 4 lety +29

      Lack of common sense is lack of intelligence. Also known as the difference between educated...and intelligent. I believe in this case, it was less about lack of common sense, and more about cavalier recklessness

    • @03chrisv
      @03chrisv Před 4 lety +19

      @@razorfett147 Recklessness can definitely overlap with the lack of common sense. The way that I understand the term "lack of common sense" is basically the lack of sound judgment in matters that can otherwise be recognized by most people. I think most people can recognize that handling something so dangerous with a screw driver and makeshift shield was the lack of sound judgment, but you can also throw in being reckless.

  • @hybridbranch6778
    @hybridbranch6778 Před 3 lety +44

    In the Marvel Universe, he would take a smoke and then fly into the sky.

  • @Rogerv1032
    @Rogerv1032 Před 2 lety +27

    For anyone curious, the reason why Slotin told everyone to remove anything metal and mark their location was so that he can calculate the level of radiation they all took and all the years that were taken from that burst of radiation. Solving that the other should survive except him since he was received the highest dose.

    • @nicholaspoulos7694
      @nicholaspoulos7694 Před 10 měsíci +15

      the metal part was because the metal components could have become radioactive from neutron bombardment.

    • @devilwarr1or
      @devilwarr1or Před 5 měsíci +2

      ​@@nicholaspoulos7694so the more metal they might have on them at the time it went critical would have increased their exposure to radiation?

    • @nicholaspoulos7694
      @nicholaspoulos7694 Před 5 měsíci +2

      @@devilwarr1or more like it’s contaminated because the neutrons embedded themselves into the metal items and made them partially radioactive.

  • @NeoRipshaft
    @NeoRipshaft Před 5 lety +1080

    That's what we call a "whoopsee-doodle" in science.

  • @Spartan536
    @Spartan536 Před 5 lety +1768

    I think this is part of the "demon core's" legacy if I remember correctly...

    • @VallornDeathblade
      @VallornDeathblade Před 5 lety +164

      Correct, that tiny sphere within the larger shell is the core itself, it's plutonium. The outer shell they are manipulating (with a damn screwdriver), is Tungsten Carbide which reflects neutrons.

    • @MisatoEnjoyer
      @MisatoEnjoyer Před 5 lety +3

      Spartan0536 yea

    • @MyGamer125
      @MyGamer125 Před 5 lety +96

      Yeah. Enrico Fermi himself told the scientist in this scene he’d be dead within a year if he kept messing with the core like that.

    • @christopherdurham1999
      @christopherdurham1999 Před 5 lety +69

      @@VallornDeathblade This is based on the incident with Louis Slotin, in which the spheres were beryllium. And his experimental protocol was even worse than depicted here - he was doing gross manipulation of the upper sphere with his thumb through a hole in the top. The incident with tungsten reflectors was bricks, and Harry Daghlian

    • @VallornDeathblade
      @VallornDeathblade Před 5 lety +18

      @@christopherdurham1999 Ahhhh thank you! I got them mixed up. And yes, the idea of having your hand on top of the sphere like that is terrifying, I do remember it specifically being a protocol which Slotin himself came up with. Why anyone would do that is beyond me.

  • @Ama-hi5kn
    @Ama-hi5kn Před 3 lety +85

    Equally horrible was what happened in Japan at the Tokaimura nuclear facility. A worker was irradiated, and suffered much the same fate as Slotin (and Daghlian). But there, doctors and nurses kept the poor man alive for an excruciating 83 days. He was doomed from the moment of the accident, but his family would not let him go.

    • @davidford3115
      @davidford3115 Před 3 lety +1

      Poor Oishi was a Guinea pig for the macabre scientists. Even his nurses begged for him to be put out of his misery. His DNA literally melted! His bone marrow was basically salt water and nothing else. The photos of his slowly dying body are an exercise in sadomasochism and NOT for the faint of heart. Nightmare Fuel indeed.

    • @Hoshimaru57
      @Hoshimaru57 Před rokem +16

      Hisashi Ooichi the living corpse. Yeah. What happened to him is probably nothing short of the most horrific thing that can happen to a human.
      Death by radiation is awful, but because they wouldn’t let him go he died the slowest most excruciating death ever.

    • @mightycat866
      @mightycat866 Před rokem +3

      I think that’s a fairly reductive telling of why he was kept alive and the man’s own involvement in said status

    • @lazarusboi6289
      @lazarusboi6289 Před rokem +6

      It's sickening to see people blame the doctors or the family for Ouchi's suffering, when it was the company's fault

    • @lanestone7093
      @lanestone7093 Před rokem +4

      ​@@lazarusboi6289 this exactly

  • @KurtIsFat
    @KurtIsFat Před rokem +20

    "Curiosity is stronger than safety" - Human motto

  • @malkavianstr450
    @malkavianstr450 Před 6 lety +587

    Disregard for one's life with necessity is heroism, disregard for one's life without necessity is stupidity, and one often necessitates the other.

    • @GHound420
      @GHound420 Před 5 lety +17

      Ok there Shakespeare

    • @nenabunena
      @nenabunena Před 5 lety +52

      @@GHound420 it's a great quote actually, your comment was unnecessary

    • @doolittlegeorge
      @doolittlegeorge Před 4 lety +7

      This incident did result in a dramatic improvement of actual safety features created by none other than one of the survivors. Would have been a better Movie if that was the subject. This was a really bad Movie period sadly. Worth reading about tho..

    • @BB-ce5ev
      @BB-ce5ev Před 4 lety +8

      @@GHound420 wow it doesnt take much for you to think something is being too smart for your tastes eh?

    • @jimmytumbles9640
      @jimmytumbles9640 Před 4 lety +11

      @@GHound420 I wonder what dullards used to say to Shakespeare when/if he came out with profound and concise characterisations of our life and times.
      "Okay Chaucer" maybe....

  • @MrCrackerJack420
    @MrCrackerJack420 Před 3 lety +78

    If I remember correctly, Slotin had been warned multiple times the experiment was stupid and unnecessary but went ahead anyway.

    • @toomanyaccounts
      @toomanyaccounts Před 2 lety +10

      his friend had died from the same experiment. he was at his friend's deathbed. he still continued the experiments without any safeguards.

    • @jimland4359
      @jimland4359 Před 2 lety +4

      Enrico Fermi if I remember correctly

    • @AB-80X
      @AB-80X Před rokem

      @@toomanyaccounts Daghlian did not perform this experiment. It was doing research on using Tungsten bricks as a neutron reflector.
      It was Fermi who about 9 months prior told Slotin that he'd be dead within a year if he kept doing things in such an unsafe manner.

    • @toomanyaccounts
      @toomanyaccounts Před rokem

      @@AB-80X yes Daghlian died the chasing the dragon's tail same as Slotin. it was also using the same core hence why it was called the demon's core

    • @dovbarleib3256
      @dovbarleib3256 Před rokem +4

      Both Enrico Fermi and Richard Feynman tried to dissuade Slotin. Fermi said he would be dead within a year, and Feynman said he was tickling a sleeping dragon's tail. And only someone with a death wish would do that. The bigger issue is that he endangered others in the room with his reckless behavior. 3 of them would die from radiation induced diseases within 20 years. 2 of them had radiation induced health problems for the rest of their shortened lives.

  • @alecboi777
    @alecboi777 Před rokem +8

    “ay bro check this out”
    *clang*
    “oh shi-“

  • @ItsYaBoyYogi
    @ItsYaBoyYogi Před 2 lety +5

    the moment the blue flashed, we were watching a dead man walk

  • @HayastAnFedayi
    @HayastAnFedayi Před 5 lety +709

    Ruptured condenser line and mildly contaminated feedwater...don’t worry he’ll be fine I’ve seen worse...

    • @becomematrix
      @becomematrix Před 4 lety +41

      ComradeDyatlov I need water in my reactor.

    • @piedpiper1697
      @piedpiper1697 Před 4 lety +34

      3.6 rotgeon not good not bad ....

    • @eamonwright7488
      @eamonwright7488 Před 4 lety +22

      I...I walked around the exterior of Building 4. I think there's graphite on the ground, in the rubble.

    • @HayastAnFedayi
      @HayastAnFedayi Před 4 lety +28

      Eamon Wright you didn’t see graphite...

    • @eamonwright7488
      @eamonwright7488 Před 4 lety +14

      ComradeDyatlov I did...

  • @kwirkLA
    @kwirkLA Před 4 lety +239

    "I'm dead"
    "Not great, not terrible"

    • @hafidbagaskara8109
      @hafidbagaskara8109 Před 3 lety +9

      Sent him to the infirmary

    • @hycron1234
      @hycron1234 Před 3 lety +7

      _He must be delusional_

    • @Coyote0874
      @Coyote0874 Před rokem +2

      Take him to the infirmary

    • @Felamine
      @Felamine Před rokem +3

      It's another faulty meter, you're just wasting our time.

    • @rimrunz1795
      @rimrunz1795 Před rokem +1

      Yah. Now THAT character should have been beamed with gamma rays

  • @joeschmo8755
    @joeschmo8755 Před 3 lety +28

    Monster movies don’t give me chills anymore. This scene is bone chilling.

    • @DaemonWulf7
      @DaemonWulf7 Před 3 lety +2

      funny part being one of the most famous monster movies - Godzilla - was actually a metaphor for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and that's why the original was so popular in post-war Japan... it tapped into a very real fear everyone there had.

    • @skip741x3
      @skip741x3 Před 2 lety

      Me too! that scene stayed in my memory...terrifying!

  • @Elthenar
    @Elthenar Před 3 lety +21

    This a composite character based on two men who died doing virtually the same thing.
    When I was watching Chernobyl, this scene kept going through my head.

  • @blingVolcano
    @blingVolcano Před 4 lety +140

    you know when you're building a nuke and you use a screwdriver and a jenga tower of lead to protect yourself?

    • @eaglevision993
      @eaglevision993 Před 2 lety +9

      The bricks are tungsten, not lead.

    • @Ivan_Berni
      @Ivan_Berni Před rokem +2

      Those bricks saved everyone else from being poisoned the same way.

  • @jasonpoole2093
    @jasonpoole2093 Před 4 lety +1049

    If you look really close, you can see the sticker that says, "This product is known to the State of California..."

  • @hycron1234
    @hycron1234 Před 3 lety +6

    All fun and games until the Cherenkov effect kicks in.

  • @degov5
    @degov5 Před 3 lety +27

    Crazy and terrifying how such a brief exposure to what seems like just a blue glow is enough to assure one of the worst ways to die.

  • @TheNightWatcher1385
    @TheNightWatcher1385 Před 3 lety +22

    Death is so abstract until it’s your turn.

  • @AudioAndroid
    @AudioAndroid Před 4 lety +185

    True story, I recently read a article about this event, now I'm not sure how close to accuratcy this scene was but I do know that the guy did use a flathead screw driver instead of blocks to navigate the sphere. This was beyond crazy and even back then other scientist called his method "Tickling the dragon’s tail"

    • @O.Reagano
      @O.Reagano Před rokem +4

      One of them used bricks and then after his death they used the spheres and screwdriver

    • @AudioAndroid
      @AudioAndroid Před rokem +3

      @@O.Reagano Yes you are correct he was a College Student I believe. I think they would just pass that Sphere around from College to College along with the attitude "Here see what you can do with it"

    • @AB-80X
      @AB-80X Před rokem +6

      @@O.Reagano The experiment Daghlian did wit bricks was quite different. The brick experiment was still done after. Slotin was simply showing a fellow scientist the experiment with the beryllium spheres - it was his last day. Slotin had made it a point of pride to perform it in this dangerous manner, and even Fermi had told him a year prior, that he'd be dead within a year if he kept doing it like that.

    • @O.Reagano
      @O.Reagano Před rokem

      @@AB-80X Not sure what you mean, but what you said is correct and I’m not arguing against that…

    • @earnestsexton8869
      @earnestsexton8869 Před rokem

      Actually, I believe the "tickling the dragon's tale" was another experiment using U235 and a sliding rod to calculate critical mass.

  • @GepropCommentaar
    @GepropCommentaar Před 3 lety +9

    This scene shows that intelligence and wisdom are seperate stats

  • @jimbugorca7968
    @jimbugorca7968 Před 3 lety +5

    That blue light (forgot the real name) is so creepy. It's been described as a heavenly blue. It's like you see a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel even before you feel anything is wrong physically.

  • @Lex5576
    @Lex5576 Před 5 lety +258

    One of the first things many of the Chernobyl liquidators noticed was a metallic taste in their mouth after taking in too much ionizing radiation. Many of them were out on the roof adjacent to the reactor, shoveling off graphite and fuel fragments that burned like Hell with radioactivity. Their shoes and suits weren't suitable for walking around on radioactive materials, so their feet started to feel like they were being stung repeatedly by bees. The pain and nausea would only get worse. Dying slowly by radiation must be awful beyond words.

    • @JoshSweetvale
      @JoshSweetvale Před 4 lety +7

      Aaaaand HBO series.

    • @jackkraken3888
      @jackkraken3888 Před 4 lety +30

      Oh you have no idea. The Chernobyl deaths were horrible but the death of Hisachi Ouchi in the tokaimura disaster in 1999 was even worse. There's a video of it in CZcams and it's terrifying.

    • @blackhawks81H
      @blackhawks81H Před 4 lety +19

      That was the firefighters. Like Ignatenko. The liquidators came later, the radiation, while still dangerous was much lower. The disaster was over 30 years ago and a lot of liquidators are still living today.... The HBO series was.... A bit dramatic... That is, if "a bit" means "a giant fuckton" still, good acting though.

    • @CrashB111
      @CrashB111 Před 2 lety +10

      @Stephen The men that went to drain the water tanks survived because water is a really good absorber of radiation. They had sealed protective suits on to keep the radioactive water / dust particles off of their bodies. And the freestanding water was itself absorbing most of the radiation around them.

    • @00177454419
      @00177454419 Před rokem +1

      @@CrashB111 What does that have to do with anything ? The water was below them. A melting nuclear reactor core was above them. Apparently it was to their good fortune that the radioactivity near those water tanks was far less than what was estimated.

  • @hardware199
    @hardware199 Před 7 lety +159

    One of the persons in the room, Raemer Schreiber, "became an exponent of remote handling of dangerous substances,
    and designed remote-control machines to perform such experiments with all personnel at a quarter-mile distance." Wikipedia

  • @dasking2120
    @dasking2120 Před 2 lety +7

    Slotin: *slips with screwdrivers*
    Demon Core: "Uh oh, that's a serious fucky wucky, now you have to get into the forever box"

  • @soarinskies1105
    @soarinskies1105 Před 3 lety +6

    This was known as the Pajarito Incident, but this didn’t occur until 1 year after World War 2 had ended in 1946. Still really cool that they included this event in the movie though.

  • @Celeon999A
    @Celeon999A Před 9 lety +507

    Los Alamos had a sad history of critically accidents like the two depicted in this movie. Mostly due to lack of expertise and lax security measures. There were three other accidents beside the two involving the demon core while one of them caused yet another fatality.
    In 1958, chemical operator Cecil Kelley recieved a humongous dosis from an accidental critically inside a plutonium purification mixing tank. The criticality lasted for just 200 microseconds but in that time he recieved a fully body exposure dosis of around 5000 Rads and died within just 35 hours after the accident. The radiation pulse was so energetic that he must have felt like being on fire. People who rushed to help reported that he was screaming : "Im burning up ! Im burning up !"

    • @theymusthatetesla3186
      @theymusthatetesla3186 Před 7 lety +40

      Wasn't that the guy who threw himself in the snow outside? Seriously.

    • @Celeon999A
      @Celeon999A Před 7 lety +63

      theymusthatetesla Yes thats right. When the accident happened, he fell from the ladder he was standing on. He was propably unconscious for a moment, then stood up again and switched the mixer tank off just to switch it back on again a moment later. He was clearly under shock and not fully aware of his surroundings. He stumbled towards the exit of the hall and collapsed outside in the snow where he was found shortly after.

    • @theymusthatetesla3186
      @theymusthatetesla3186 Před 7 lety +22

      Celeon999A
      ...then the SL1 debacle. I was told by one of our Health Physicists, once, that (and I'm sure you know about the SL1 after what you told me) the guy pulled the rod out with subsequent impalation, deliberately, because of some sort of love-triangle with one of his co-workers (suicide?). He was an intelligent bloke, the HP guy, and not prone to idle chit chat....just for your information, it MAY be apocryphal.
      See if you can get hold of Leuren Moret's talk about when she went to Fukishima. She described a crane derrick, collapsing into the 'mess' as due to 'wignerization' of the steel. What LEVEL of bloody doserate can do THAT?! In such a short time, at least. Also, reports of blue 'lines' going up into the sky at night. Not cherenkov radiation, but apparently radiation interacting with the nitrogen in the air. I dunno....maybe I've picked it up wrong.
      Before I go, if you haven't already seen it (it's on YT) watch 'Surviving Disaster' Chernobyl, with Ade Edmonson, who plays, I believe Valery Legasov. It is EXCELLENT. And there is a bit on it where, if you don't have tears in your eyes when you see it....well, watch it if you can.
      Ooh!...I'm all depressed, now! ;)

    • @vacciniumaugustifolium1420
      @vacciniumaugustifolium1420 Před 6 lety +1

      I kall it "karma"

    • @jasonpoole2093
      @jasonpoole2093 Před 4 lety +11

      @CaptHawkeye Not so the Russians. They didn't care who they killed in their sadistic quest to make "the bomb." Workers, soldiers, whole villages..no one was safe.

  • @capthitmarkah4902
    @capthitmarkah4902 Před 3 lety +159

    Kyle Hill sent me...

  • @margaritar.6907
    @margaritar.6907 Před 3 lety +62

    This scene is haunting to me, it actually happened. Cusack perfectly captured the despair one would feel

  • @West_Coast_Gang
    @West_Coast_Gang Před rokem +2

    “Well that does it” -Slotin

  • @videowilliams
    @videowilliams Před 3 lety +57

    John Cusack's subplot was by far the most phobic one in the film for me. The way he looked that final time to nurse and girlfriend Laura Dern as he got wheeled into intensive care with blood-filled eyes wide open in stark terror was horrifying enough to burn into my brain for life, it seems, on a single viewing.

  • @anaixtar6793
    @anaixtar6793 Před 5 lety +40

    This incident was detailed in the book "The Accident" by Dexter Masters, The movie places it out of proper time sequence- this misadventure happened after the war- but this scene captures all the essence of things gone very very bad.

    • @kentvesser9484
      @kentvesser9484 Před rokem +2

      Yeah, it was inserted for dramatic effect and for some moralizing about the nascent effect of radiation on people that were just beginning to be understood. This wasn't just a bomb that made a big explosion and fireball, it had other effects that were lethal in another way and in many ways worse that dying quickly in the blast.

  • @JGott0001
    @JGott0001 Před 3 lety +11

    "Give your bodies to Atom, my friends. Release yourself to his power, feel his Glow and be Divided."

  • @KittyNoodlesPPC
    @KittyNoodlesPPC Před 2 lety +58

    Slotin was known to have performed this same demonstration dozens of times before, usually while wearing jeans and with a noted lack of gloves. If I recall correctly, on the day of the incident, he was using only one screwdriver as a stopper, and manipulating the top half of the orb with his bare hand - when it slipped he was able to flip the top half to the floor almost immediately as a result. He was also noted to be very brazen about this experiment and the safety measures involved - which is rather damning, considering he was there at the bedside of the first scientist the demon core killed and knew precisely the risks involved.
    EDIT: According to reports, Slotin was disoriented by the blast of radiation he received, and in addition to making everybody mark down where they were standing he had one of his colleagues gather everyone's badges - a completely unnecessary extra measure that caused that colleague to be further exposed, and something Slotin likely wouldn't have done were he not disoriented from the blast. That said, his position at the time of the blast meant that his body was able to partially shield the colleague standing just behind him from the worst of the radiation.
    As an aside, this experiment was NEVER considered a good idea, with critics referring to it as "tickling the dragon's tail" after one man said playing with the criticality point of plutonium was like tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon.

    • @Takeshi357
      @Takeshi357 Před 2 lety +1

      Wasn't that "one man" Oppenheimer?

    • @if6was929
      @if6was929 Před rokem +4

      @@Takeshi357 Richard Feynman coined the phrase, "tickling a dragon's tail"

    • @AB-80X
      @AB-80X Před rokem +1

      @@Takeshi357 No. Oppenheimer never did this experiment, and he most certainly would not have done what Slotin did.

    • @Takeshi357
      @Takeshi357 Před rokem +3

      @@AB-80X That's not even remotely what I was implying

  • @TBone-bz9mp
    @TBone-bz9mp Před 3 lety +48

    Fun fact: This core here, was actually meant to be the core for the planned third nuclear strike on Japan.

    • @davidford3115
      @davidford3115 Před 3 lety +8

      Luck of Kokura. Ironically, Kokura was suppose to be the FIRST place bombed and ended up being the tertiary target should a third bomb have been delivered to Tinian. Ted Fujita who developed the tornado damage scale was in Kokura on the days BOTH bombs were dropped. And he put his first hand observations of nuclear blast damage in developing that tornadic damage scale.

    • @user-ek5uv9dv2q
      @user-ek5uv9dv2q Před 23 dny

      Fun fact: americans can call genocide a "fun fact"

    • @TBone-bz9mp
      @TBone-bz9mp Před 23 dny

      @@user-ek5uv9dv2q
      Japan had it coming

  • @jeffreyveradt891
    @jeffreyveradt891 Před 3 lety +38

    This is a re-creation of the Louis Slotin incident. The movie has it happening in wartime but it actually happened after the war was over. The events were pretty much the same but Slotin suffered a long, agonizing death.

    • @isaacbruner65
      @isaacbruner65 Před 3 lety +2

      Also, he was sick of working at Los Alamos and was supposed to go back to teaching. He was training his replacement when the incident occured, Alvin Graves, who got a severe dose of radiation but survived.

    • @jeffreyveradt891
      @jeffreyveradt891 Před 3 lety +1

      @@isaacbruner65 watch Operation Ivy Nuclear Test. Alvin Graves was the scientific head on that 10 megaton test and he is featured prominently in that fim.

    • @isaacbruner65
      @isaacbruner65 Před 3 lety

      @@jeffreyveradt891 interesting

    • @KGhaleon
      @KGhaleon Před 3 lety +1

      I think at that point I'd just continue the experiments, knowing my life is ending anyway. Then when its time just have a gun with a single bullet nearby so I don't have to suffer too much.

    • @chakatfirepaw
      @chakatfirepaw Před 2 lety +4

      It's actually a mix of the two Demon Core incidents: The stacked blocks were from the Daghlian experiment, which used tungsten carbine blocks as a neutron reflector. Harry Daghlian noticed as he was placing the final block that the core was about to go supercritical but he dropped the block as he was jerking his hand back. The screwdriver being used to control the distance between two beryllium half-spheres was from the Slotin incident, and he was actually being even more sloppy than is being portrayed here. In reality, there was no wall of metal blocks and he was partly controlling the upper sphere with his bare hand, (a recently published paper even identifies the position of his hand as what pushed the core over the line, the slip alone wasn't quite enough).

  • @Shetyre
    @Shetyre Před 10 měsíci +5

    people:scientists are smart, you should listen to them
    also scientists:

  • @danthegooberman15
    @danthegooberman15 Před 2 lety +2

    i cant believe he did not even say "well that does it"

  • @leerman22
    @leerman22 Před 7 lety +160

    Who thought this was a good idea? Kerbals?

    • @bfahren
      @bfahren Před 6 lety +11

      Louis Slotin.

    • @JETZcorp
      @JETZcorp Před 3 lety +13

      Ohhhh, I would love a Kerbal Atomic Program game! And it would teach more people about radiation and nuclear technology than anything in history.

    • @fatetestarossa2774
      @fatetestarossa2774 Před 3 lety +1

      @@JETZcorp aGREE
      : )))))))))))

  • @phillipdavies1081
    @phillipdavies1081 Před 6 lety +158

    No engraved warning on the screwdriver like you get on the Snap-On stuff not to use as an atomic pry-bar...that's the problem here.

    • @whackyjinak4978
      @whackyjinak4978 Před 6 lety +5

      Indeed

    • @ericsmith8373
      @ericsmith8373 Před 5 lety +1

      Did he have any kids (before his nads were sterilized)? They could sue.

    • @isaned
      @isaned Před 4 lety +1

      Should say "DO NOT USE FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING!!"

    • @brettbaxter7882
      @brettbaxter7882 Před 3 lety

      This is why we have warning labels now.

  • @hurricanerising3465
    @hurricanerising3465 Před 3 lety +13

    "The True Story of the Demon Core" - Kyle Hill

  • @scottmatheson3346
    @scottmatheson3346 Před 10 měsíci +3

    "what a cool innovator, i want to be just like him!"
    - stockton rush
    imagine what social media would do with this guy today.

  • @adventuressurvivalinthailand

    He even took out the little separators that would prevent the lid closing tightly even if he dropped it. Gross negligence

  • @MySerpentine
    @MySerpentine Před 4 lety +20

    In real life his first words were 'well that does it,' I believe. A slight understatement, but otherwise accurate.

  • @TomFynn
    @TomFynn Před rokem +1

    The worst of it was that all the data they got out of it was garbage, since "at this point I twisted the screwdriver just a bit" is maddeningly unhelpful.

  • @jakebaker4066
    @jakebaker4066 Před 10 měsíci +2

    Blame it on the supposed (didn’t happen) coffee slip… but It was his own hubris using a flat head screwdriver. He still literally embodied a informative experiment.

  • @JonathanAGarrett
    @JonathanAGarrett Před 5 lety +147

    Tickling the dragon's tail...

    • @aryanson
      @aryanson Před 4 lety +4

      more like jackass tickles the dragon's tail. Wonder if he glowed in the dark

    • @chriseffpunkt4333
      @chriseffpunkt4333 Před 3 lety

      @@aryanson the procedure was called "tickling the dragons tail", thats what he meant...

    • @aryanson
      @aryanson Před 3 lety

      @@chriseffpunkt4333 I know that, Slotin was warned many times he would die if he continued to do it.

  • @wanderinghistorian
    @wanderinghistorian Před 5 lety +60

    I FOUND IT! I have been looking for this movie for YEARS. I saw it decades ago and was too young to bother remembering the title or anything but I remembered this scene and how it started my fascination with radiation and its deadly power. Thanks CZcams algorithms!

  • @bequietandrive222
    @bequietandrive222 Před rokem +2

    I cannot let you escape squidward

  • @STVODVIL
    @STVODVIL Před 10 měsíci +4

    Historical Fact: The character is Michael Merriman and is based upon Louis Slotin.

  • @UnknownUzer
    @UnknownUzer Před 3 lety +23

    Wow, it's been over 20 years since I last watched this movie. I just watched this clip and I am struck by how much young John Cusack looks like Shia LaBeouf

    • @davidford3115
      @davidford3115 Před 3 lety +1

      I made the same mistake when I first saw this clip.

  • @dirtyblond2332
    @dirtyblond2332 Před 5 lety +87

    Everybody knows you should never use Husky brand screwdrivers for critical jobs...

  • @jensdavidsen4557
    @jensdavidsen4557 Před 2 lety +4

    I work as an Analytical Chemist for a radioactive pharmaceutical isotope company...this clip was part of everyone's training in radiation worker safety.

  • @AM-wk9od
    @AM-wk9od Před rokem +20

    I know what he did was idiotic and preventable which makes most people angry, but the raw emotion and regret he must have felt in that fraction of a second must’ve been devastating. He didn’t even have to do any calculations to know if he’d die.

    • @worsethanhitlerpt.2539
      @worsethanhitlerpt.2539 Před 10 měsíci +1

      I wonder if this accident will be in the Openheimer movie I guess not since its in this movie already. They will prob. depict some other radiation accident to show the danger
      of the research

  • @orangejoe204
    @orangejoe204 Před 8 lety +409

    Shoulda used the shims like Fermi and Feynman told you to, Louie.

    • @snowwhite7677
      @snowwhite7677 Před 6 lety +28

      Yea, why does "Mickey Mouse" come to mind when watching how they carried out this procedure?

    • @vacciniumaugustifolium1420
      @vacciniumaugustifolium1420 Před 6 lety +4

      A poor canadian

    • @NathanStar-vw3dm
      @NathanStar-vw3dm Před 6 lety +2

      One of those people with a death wish - just a shame they involve others in it

    • @Cybrsk8r
      @Cybrsk8r Před 5 lety +4

      "Dammit!" There's the understatement of all time.

    • @ryelor123
      @ryelor123 Před 5 lety +7

      @@snowwhite7677 There was a war going on and every hour longer it took to build the bomb would cost the lives of soldiers. In fact, had they not built the bomb in time, Operation Downfall would've had to start which would've cost hundreds of thousands of lives if not millions. In fact, my grandfather was slated to be part of Operation Downfall and he likely survived the war because these heroes were willing to do this reckless stuff.
      Supposedly all the Purple Heart medals that have been given out since WW2 were made right before Operation Downfall because the military assumed that they'd need millions of them just for that invasion. In other words, if you're in the military today and Daesh shoots you in the arm, the medal you'll get for that was originally intended to be given to a soldier in 1945 or 1946 during the invasion of Japan.

  • @tnerbtnerb5136
    @tnerbtnerb5136 Před 5 lety +22

    While incredibly stupid in that moment, at least Slotin proved himself worthy of his station to some degree in his actions immediately before and after the accident: he had had the rest of the staff take far more adequate precautions prior to the disaster and his first thought after the disaster was to save THEM from his fuckup; tossing any potentially irratiated metal objects and vacating the building.

    • @AndreNitroX
      @AndreNitroX Před 5 lety +6

      He made a mistake and he paid for it with his life

    • @lewisner
      @lewisner Před 4 lety +5

      I thought the idea of dropping the metal objects was to measure how much radiation they had absorbed at various distances ?

  • @NinoNiemanThe1st
    @NinoNiemanThe1st Před rokem +36

    Most amazing thing in this scene was was that everybody caught the chalk without dropping it as it was thrown at them after a criticality incident! And that the chalk floor drawings are so accurate and precise after just a few seconds.

    • @Battlefresh
      @Battlefresh Před 10 měsíci +2

      No he asked them to quickly scribe where they stood then leave immediately. Later they came back to fill out the foot profiles and distances clearly.

  • @ElephantRage
    @ElephantRage Před 2 lety +1

    I had been looking for this for more than 30 years. I saw this movie as a kid with mom and dad but could not remember anything except this scene. What a weird feeling now.

  • @pirobot668beta
    @pirobot668beta Před 3 lety +5

    Engineering has often had moments where the great surge ahead was all that mattered.
    Taking the time to ask "Is this really safe? What could go wrong?" was seen obstructing progress.
    The idea of 'fail-safe' engineering is pretty dang new.

  • @tomservo5347
    @tomservo5347 Před 6 lety +39

    Some great acting by Cusack.

  • @ebinshumate3132
    @ebinshumate3132 Před rokem +2

    not so fun fact: the "demon core" was originally going to be used in a third atomic bomb that was to be dropped on Japan a few days after fat man was dropped on Nagasaki, the core; along with it's shell: were in the process being transported to the site when Japan's surrender was announced

  • @canadabisi7857
    @canadabisi7857 Před rokem +1

    Mistakes here are ALWAYS unforgivable

  • @tonystephenson4842
    @tonystephenson4842 Před 6 lety +16

    That's why it was called tickling the dragon .. got tickled too much and he lost

  • @isaacschmitt4803
    @isaacschmitt4803 Před 3 lety +20

    "I'm dead." Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Almost like it was against protocol to use screwdrivers instead of wooden shims. . .

  • @cupcake_toucher445
    @cupcake_toucher445 Před rokem +1

    Imagine putting radioactive ball in mifdle of your office so anybody can touch it

  • @edog5548
    @edog5548 Před 3 lety +10

    The horrifyingly accurate part is that he literally had his coworkers mark where they were standing so he could accurately find out how much time was cut off of everyone's life span, and he died I think a few days later, and the hand he used to knock the top half of the dome off was so badly deformed from the radiation that there were huge blisters and abrasions going from his finger tips to his wrist

    • @davidford3115
      @davidford3115 Před 3 lety

      @Michael Gibson I suspect the nerves were already dead from the radiation at that point so there likely was not much pain.

    • @davidford3115
      @davidford3115 Před 3 lety

      @Michael Gibson "White nose" or nothing as in no stimulus? That could either be similar to the ant/spider feeling you get when your arm of leg goes numb, or it could simply be no feeling like when your skin is burn off with third degree burns or while under anesthesia such as Novocain when you are at the dentist. Either way, I never want to find out first hand.

  • @CPRailRTC
    @CPRailRTC Před 10 lety +40

    A composite character between Daglihan and Louis Slotin

    • @isaned
      @isaned Před 4 lety +7

      Daghlian was using tungsten carbide bricks to make a neutron reflector and he dropped one on the core, causing it to go critical, and no screwdrivers were harmed in that experiment

  • @theclockworksolution8521
    @theclockworksolution8521 Před 4 lety +171

    “Demon Core? More like *Darwin* Core,
    *A m I r i T e*?”
    ~slaps knee~

  • @tonyennis1787
    @tonyennis1787 Před rokem +3

    There were machinists on base. They could have made him a completely safe fixture in a few hours. Slotin was a risk-taker and his death had been predicted.

  • @FNHaole
    @FNHaole Před rokem +3

    30 years ago I worked on a house whose owner had about 65% of his digits. His team had been x-raying an airliner fuselage to detect fatigue. His partner had left the beam on. Upon touching the hot surface, he instantly knew his clock had rapidly started counting down. What a sick feeling.