Fascinating photos of The Gadget, including one of Louis Slotin (the near-first 'criticality' victim-via-Oops. Via screwdriver.)

More fascinating: this super-gif of a recapitulation of that slip enviro, with lots of shiny objects: of considerable use to us reconstructionists,
when added to all the since-outed Info.. on the then-world's most expensive metal ball evah..

Many hints here on the early-concepts/details of the conundrum of slowing *effects.. for new-generations of neutrons -vs- the ever-increasing pressure which
**Shall Overcome by opposing that aim. (As his footnote on another scrap says.. "surprised this item not classified", as was I.)

* invention the shake: 10 nSec.["two shakes of a lamb's tale"]
** kinda like MLK et al? -vs- all. those. Trogldodytes we ever-nurture in Murican swamplands.

Anyway the pics are priceless, of a time-capsule destined to be mined in successive generations (if there are ... well, you know.)

Bon [BOOM] appetít, you Ghouls

PS: Also Atom Bombs: The Top Secret Inside Story of Little Boy and Fat Man ..but pricey.

Blake says:
August 16, 2013 at 6:08 pm
Disturbingly, this may not have even been Slotin’s first time seeing or touching that enigmatic and beautiful Cherenkov glow. A few months before his fatal misadventure he swam to the bottom of a borated water shielding pool on top of the Clinton pile at ORNL WHILE IT WAS OPERATING to repair one of his experiments that he didn’t want to wait another 2 days until shutdown to fix. He took off his film badge before doing it of course, so it was only roughly estimated later that he likely blasted himself with an obscene ~>100R of exposure. Fermi was bang on in his warning that Slotin’s gross recklessness would soon see him dead.

!!! Hard to excuse Fermi (et al) for not house-breaking this yahoo, given that he might well have taken n-others with him (as almost .. with the Core.) What if he took Oppie with him? in some 'demo'.
And war time risks considered, even: anyone here could cobble-up a gadget that could physically limit the proximity of that perfectly machined Half-a-Hellfire, for any utterly-necessary experiment. Remotely.. would be an obvious first choice too.

I recall seeing a potboiler movie (with Muy, the sci. teacher) The Beginning or the End, which portrayed Slotin as you'd expect: bright-eyed, bushy-tailed young Scientist/dying heroically. Hollywood!

Really the entire Manhattan Project now seems surreal, but then: it sure got this kid to want to learn Moar about how that stuff worked ... now:
if-Only it Hadn't: no cold war, ICBMs, but maybe a Hot one ... but n $Ts as could have bought ... {Sanity?}