
04/09/2025
The Demon Core Accidents
In the bowels of Los Alamos National Laboratory, amid the final flickers of World War II and the dawning chill of the atomic age, a sinister object was born. It was small—just a 14-pound subcritical mass of plutonium, forged from the ashes of science and ambition. But the men who worked with it whispered another name.
They called it the Demon Core.
Originally destined to be the third atomic bomb, the core was spared detonation when Japan surrendered. But its nightmare had only begun.
August 21, 1945.
Physicist Harry Daghlian worked late that night, alone in a high-security lab, surrounded by dense blocks of tungsten carbide. His mission: construct a neutron reflector around the core to study how close he could bring it to criticality—when the chain reaction would spiral out of control.
He knew the risk. Every block added tightened the demon’s grip.
Then, with one trembling hand, he reached to add another. A slip. A clang. A single tungsten brick dropped into place—completing the reflector.
For just an instant, the Demon Core awoke.
A blue glow flooded the room—Cherenkov radiation. Invisible daggers of neutron energy pierced his body. Daghlian scrambled to knock the brick loose, saving the lab, but it was too late. He died 25 days later, his body consumed from within by radiation poisoning.
They tried to blame the accident on carelessness.
But the core wasn't done yet.
May 21, 1946.
Nine months later. Same lab. Same core. This time, physicist Louis Slotin was showing a group of scientists a criticality demonstration—he was a cowboy, they said, comfortable playing with the demon’s tail.
He used a screwdriver—yes, a screwdriver—to separate two hemispheres of a beryllium reflector around the core. It was a delicate balance. If the top half fell, the reflector would fully enclose the core, and criticality would be achieved.
Then... it slipped.
The halves met. The room burst into a dazzling blue. The demon roared again.
Slotin, in a final act of heroism, tore the reflector away with his bare hands—exposing himself to a lethal dose to protect everyone else.
He joked on the way to the hospital. A week later, he was dead.
The Demon Core had claimed its second soul.
After Slotin’s death, the core was finally decommissioned, melted down, never to be used in another experiment. It had proven too volatile, too angry.
Or maybe... too hungry.
To this day, the Demon Core remains one of the most haunting relics of atomic history—a reminder that even the brightest minds can dance too close to darkness, and that curiosity, unchecked, has a price.
Because some things...no matter how small..should never be awakened.