Corrections to websites re. Slotin

["Arnold Dion" <asdion@cyberenet.net>]

For those of you who went to the following link, as suggested by J. Franta:

http://www.cns-snc.ca/branches/manitoba/slotin.html

please note that it, as well, contains errors.


Slotin never "specialized in triggering devices." Slotin's duties at Los
Alamos were confined to criticality testing, first with Otto Frisch's
uranium "Dragon experiments" and then with plutonium cores.

Slotin was not "buried in a lead coffin in Winnipeg." As noted by the
comments that follow in the above website, Slotin's tissues/body fluids were
significantly radioactive, but not sufficiently to warrant a lead coffin.
The explanation of why this confusion occurred is wrong. Slotin's coffin had
a liner which was required by law for a body (any body!) that crossed an
international border. In Daglian's case, he was buried in a standard, US
Army-issued coffin, no liner.

The criticality accident that proved fatal to Slotin was performed with a
nickel-plated core surrounded by two hemispherical Be shells and not a
"beryllium-coated plutonium" core.

Slotin did not "use his hands to separate the hemispheres." His left thumb
was inserted in the polar hole of the upper Be shell and, in a "knee-jerk"
reaction, he raised his left arm and let the shell fall to the floor.

Monitoring the "beginning of a chain reaction, which they detected by a blue
glow" is, of course, illogical. It should also be noted that the use of a
screwdriver was never a part of the standard protocol! The Be shells were
separated by spacers/shims, but when Slotin did the experiment, this
separation did not give an adequate increase in neutron multiplication for
demonstration purposes. So,
he removed the shims and attempted to maintain the separation with a
screwdriver blade.

I hope this eliminates some more myths, but it's like fighting a brush fire.
I will address the blue glow, heat and "dry, prickly sensation" in a future
posting.

Arnold Dion (asdion@cyberenet.net)
(http://arnold_dion.tripod.com/Daghlian/)

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