Meridian, radiation and atomic bomb history ...
Mods - please dump this entry if this is not the place to put this.
It came to my attention after redailing Meridian (RL got busy at the time and you were pretty lucky to get the meta I wrote!) that something rather important was missed out. Not one person mentioned Dr Louis Slotin. I feel I should do that now and would be pleased if you could post it this season (I know, I know!) because I think people should know the story that lead to Daniel's ascension was based on events and facts that lead to the death of an actual human being.
He was involved in the Manhattan Project the nuclear weapons research where the atomic bomb that landed on Hiroshima was created. On June 14th 1946 was an accident - a criticality accident - where 'hard radiation' was released during test work . Two halves of what later became known as the 'demon core' - plutonium hemispheres - came into contact and let out a burst of radiation which Slotin blocked most of with his body. He also knocked the domes apart stopping the reaction. His actions saved the lives of other scientists in the room - of the eight people there only two men died. There was no leaping through a glass window but Dr Slotin did stop an experiment which was going horribly wrong getting a lethal dose of radiation in the process and dying of it nine days later.
The drawing done at the time to work out how much radiation each of the scientists had recieved (from Wikipedia)
There was a play written about all this caled the Louis Slotin Sonata which I have a feeling our writer saw as the stuff about icepacks and the burnt hand of Daniel (or rather Soltin) is played out in detail in the play.
I rest my case and suggest anyone else interested in this looks it all up on Wikipedia. Some kind soul has put up the play script here.
At that I rest my interruption ...
It came to my attention after redailing Meridian (RL got busy at the time and you were pretty lucky to get the meta I wrote!) that something rather important was missed out. Not one person mentioned Dr Louis Slotin. I feel I should do that now and would be pleased if you could post it this season (I know, I know!) because I think people should know the story that lead to Daniel's ascension was based on events and facts that lead to the death of an actual human being.
He was involved in the Manhattan Project the nuclear weapons research where the atomic bomb that landed on Hiroshima was created. On June 14th 1946 was an accident - a criticality accident - where 'hard radiation' was released during test work . Two halves of what later became known as the 'demon core' - plutonium hemispheres - came into contact and let out a burst of radiation which Slotin blocked most of with his body. He also knocked the domes apart stopping the reaction. His actions saved the lives of other scientists in the room - of the eight people there only two men died. There was no leaping through a glass window but Dr Slotin did stop an experiment which was going horribly wrong getting a lethal dose of radiation in the process and dying of it nine days later.
The drawing done at the time to work out how much radiation each of the scientists had recieved (from Wikipedia)
There was a play written about all this caled the Louis Slotin Sonata which I have a feeling our writer saw as the stuff about icepacks and the burnt hand of Daniel (or rather Soltin) is played out in detail in the play.
I rest my case and suggest anyone else interested in this looks it all up on Wikipedia. Some kind soul has put up the play script here.
At that I rest my interruption ...