The Demon Core: The radioactive sphere that claimed two brilliant lives. ☢️💀

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]Did you know a single plutonium sphere killed two scientists in separate accidents at Los Alamos? Physicists called it "tickling the dragon's tail."

[00:00:08]>> [music] >> The demon core was just 8 lb of plutonium, but it was lethal. In 1946, Louis Slotin was demonstrating [music] the experiment to colleagues. He used a screwdriver to keep two plutonium hemispheres [music] barely apart. One slip, the screwdriver slipped, the hemispheres touched, [music] a blue flash filled the room. Slotin quickly separated them with his bare hands, saving his colleagues, but he had absorbed a fatal dose of [music] radiation. His colleagues watched him die over nine agonizing days. The dragon had bitten back.