Word: slotin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...there was Louis Slotin, a morose Canadian with an apparent death wish, who conducted tests of critical assemblies by poking curved segments of uranium or plutonium together with a screwdriver while eying his Geiger counter and neutron monitor. One day in 1946, nudging segments of a Bikini test bomb a little too close, he suddenly saw a blue ionization glow in the room-the sign of a dangerously radioactive reaction. He threw his body over the segments until everyone else in the room could hurry out. Although the others lived, Slotin achieved his death wish. He died in agony nine...