News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on ‘Criticality safety event’ occurred at LANL’s plutonium facility. Parent comment

Re:‘Criticality safety event’ occurred at LANL’s plutonium f... by userbinator on Sunday September 24, 2017 @12:25PM (#15325314)
That was 71 years ago. A lot of things considered highly dangerous today weren't back then, and the dangers of radiation were also not as well known.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:‘Criticality safety event’ occurred at LANL’s plutonium f... by tatterdemalion on Sunday September 24, 2017 @01:41PM (#15325662)
Upthread there are quotes from other physicists chiding Slotin because what he was doing was extremely dangerous. It was known at the time.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:‘Criticality safety event’ occurred at LANL’s plutonium f... by kobeya on Monday September 25, 2017 @01:37AM (#15328282)
It was theorized at the time. Much of what we know about nuclear safety was learned from accidents like this. Slotin was doing excessively dangerous and downright stupid even for the time, but let’s still be careful to only judge him by the standards of the day.
[ Parent | on HN ]