Louis Slotin
Louis Slotin · Science & Medicine
Manhattan Project physicist who stopped a runaway criticality with his bare hands, absorbing the radiation himself and saving seven colleagues
1 December 1910, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada — 30 May 1946, Los Alamos, New Mexico, United States
Canada · United States
Louis Slotin is recognized among Jewish contributors to Science & Medicine — Manhattan Project physicist who stopped a runaway criticality with his bare hands, absorbing the radiation himself and saving seven colleagues
Louis Slotin was the eldest of three children of Israel and Sonia Slotin, Yiddish-speaking Jewish refugees from the Russian pogroms who had settled in Winnipeg. He assembled plutonium cores at Los Alamos. On 21 May 1946 a screwdriver slipped during a criticality experiment and the core went supercritical; Slotin pulled the two hemispheres apart with his hands, ending the reaction in an instant. He absorbed a fatal dose and died nine days later; the seven others in the room survived.
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Source: Wikipedia — Louis Slotin
Manhattan Project physicist who stopped a runaway criticality with his bare hands, absorbing the radiation himself and saving seven colleagues
Source: Wikipedia — Louis Slotin
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