From: Btflaig@aol.com
Date: Sun Nov 07 2004 - 19:47:41 PST
From: Btflaig@aol.com Message-ID: <84.37ed0a4f.2ec0465d@aol.com> Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 22:47:41 EST Subject: re: tickling the dragon's tail
I was telling my 8th grade class an anecdote that my high school chemistry
teacher told me about uranium but soon realized that time (among other things)
had erased the details. Does anyone know the story of a famous scientist who
used to thrill peers and students by slowly moving blocks of uranium closer and
closer towards each other until they began to warm and approach critical
mass? It may have been in Chicago. I definitely remember that the story had a
tragic ending when the poor guy brought the blocks too close together and
started some sort of reaction. He jumped up on the lab table and threw his body
across the blocks screaming "Get out!" to everyone observing the experiment. His
death soon followed. That part I remember.
Bryan Flaig
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