When Science Goes Wrong by Simon Levay

Author:Simon Levay [Levay, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Non-Fiction, Science
ISBN: 9781906308087
Google: p6g6PgAACAAJ
Amazon: 190630808X
Barnesnoble: 190630808X
Goodreads: 6403363
Publisher: Monday
Published: 2008-03-01T10:00:00+00:00

NUCLEAR PHYSICS: Meltdown

THE TOMBSTONE OF Richard Leroy McKinley looks no different from hundreds of others in Section 31 of Arlington National Cemetery. It’s a plain stone slab, decorated with a simple cross. It lists McKinley’s date of birth (December 2, 1933) and death (January 3, 1961), states his rank (Army Specialist 4), and mentions his service in Korea.

If you were to dig beneath the stone, however – an act which is forbidden by a special order from the office of the US Adjutant General – you would find something out of the ordinary. You would have to dig through three feet of earth, then drill through a foot-thick slab of concrete, then break open a metal enclosure that reaches ten feet into the ground, and then work your way through another concrete casing before you got to the metal casket, which is lined with lead sheeting. If you finally managed to get the casket open, you would find what appeared to be a mummy, wrapped in successive layers of lead, plastic, and cotton sheeting. After unwinding these wrappings, you would finally see the mortal remains of Richard McKinley himself. You would notice that his belly and chest have been roughly sliced open and his internal organs removed, along with his left arm and most of his skin. While pondering this macabre scene, you would be absorbing enough nuclear radiation to put your own life in peril.

McKinley was one of three men – the others were John Byrnes and Richard Legg – who died in a night time explosion at the National Reactor Testing Station (now the Idaho National Laboratory) on Idaho’s Snake River Plain. The cause of the explosion, in a scientific sense, was quickly figured out. But the human cause of the accident – if, indeed, it was an accident – remains a mystery 45 years after the event.

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