631
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Patches@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 day ago

But why he no wear lead suit?

Given that it had already tasted human blood.

[-] zout@fedia.io 19 points 1 day ago

Why not use the shims designed for this instead of the tip of a screwdriver?

[-] pulsewidth@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago

Save 30 seconds by not having to find the correct shims and just use your handy screwdriver.

What's the worst that could happen?

[-] Midnitte@beehaw.org 11 points 1 day ago

Obviously to tickle the tail of a dragon, duh

[-] janus2@lemmy.zip 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

a lead suit would have done fuckall in that situation

the amount of lead you can feasibly wear on your body can protect you from, say, dental X-rays, but not from research FAFO-grade gamma radiation

you need several inches of lead and/or tungsten for that kind of shielding. you might also need several feet of concrete if neutron radiation is involved

[-] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 5 points 17 hours ago

Lead is good for blocking alpha and beta radiation, but does not do that much against gamma, which was the main radiation he received, so yeah. Probably would not have saved him.

[-] deltapi@lemmy.world 4 points 20 hours ago

A human body blocks more than several inches of lead? I need to rethink the design of my bunker.

[-] xthexder@l.sw0.com 6 points 19 hours ago

Doing some quick math and numbers pulled from wikipedia, Lead is about 14-15x as effective by volume compared to water at blocking gamma radiation.

I think far more significant in saving the other scientists was the inverse square law. The radiation energy falls off with the square of distance, so Slotin would have received a significantly higher dose just from being right next to it.

[-] Patches@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 day ago

I mean wasn't the lead shell itself enough to stop it? How thick is the candy shell?

this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2025
631 points (99.1% liked)

Science Memes

16527 readers
3390 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS