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[-] deltapi@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

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

[-] xthexder@l.sw0.com 7 points 23 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.

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

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