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Running Helps, But No One Runs That Fast
Sep. 18th, 2006 06:18 pmSome people take the time to worry about things, bizarre things, things that would "never" happen.
Things like: "If there was a criticality, would I know it and, assuming I live long enough, should I bother to run?"
If it happened in a nuclear reactor, it might look a little bit like this: http://nscr.tamu.edu/images/Pulse.mpg
What happened there is that a burst of compressed air burped up a fuel rod from the reactor bed below, allowing the energy release of the reactor to jump from 3MW to 30,000MW as it goes, ever so briefly, critical. On purpose, mind you. This reactor is designed to do this...with Science.
The infamous "blue flash" you saw after the countdown finished is Cherenkov radiation, the electromagnetic equivalent of a sonic boom since there are particles traveling faster than the speed of light in water. When shown this as a surprise at pulsing TRIGA reactors, unsuspecting radiation workers experience a highly technical moment of brown trousers time. It has been drilled into us that seeing this means, "Oh shit, I'm dead."
The answers are yes and yes. As long as you have eyes, you will see something. Only the greatest of willpower to overcome your entirely justified sense of self-preservation will prevent you from running. No matter how bad it is, any distance you can put between you and the bad puts the inverse square law firmly on your side. In the case of Dr. Slotin and his seven co-workers, it was the difference between life and death.
Things like: "If there was a criticality, would I know it and, assuming I live long enough, should I bother to run?"
If it happened in a nuclear reactor, it might look a little bit like this: http://nscr.tamu.edu/images/Pulse.mpg
What happened there is that a burst of compressed air burped up a fuel rod from the reactor bed below, allowing the energy release of the reactor to jump from 3MW to 30,000MW as it goes, ever so briefly, critical. On purpose, mind you. This reactor is designed to do this...with Science.
The infamous "blue flash" you saw after the countdown finished is Cherenkov radiation, the electromagnetic equivalent of a sonic boom since there are particles traveling faster than the speed of light in water. When shown this as a surprise at pulsing TRIGA reactors, unsuspecting radiation workers experience a highly technical moment of brown trousers time. It has been drilled into us that seeing this means, "Oh shit, I'm dead."
The answers are yes and yes. As long as you have eyes, you will see something. Only the greatest of willpower to overcome your entirely justified sense of self-preservation will prevent you from running. No matter how bad it is, any distance you can put between you and the bad puts the inverse square law firmly on your side. In the case of Dr. Slotin and his seven co-workers, it was the difference between life and death.
