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Winnipeg's Oppenheimer: The man responsible for the core of the atomic bomb
Winnipeg's Oppenheimer: The man responsible for the core of the atomic bomb
The new movie Oppenheimer has been bringing people to the theatres and taking them back in time looking at the creation of the atomic bomb, but a Winnipegger who was part of the project still remains in the shadows.
Louis Slotin was born on Dec. 1, 1910, and grew up in Winnipeg’s North End.
By the time he was 16, he went to the University of Manitoba, where he got both his Bachelor's and Master's of Science and by the time he was 25, he had a doctorate in biochemistry from London University...
...after receiving his doctorate, Slotin went to the University of Chicago and started working with Enrico Fermi...
“When Fermi got drafted into the Manhattan Project, he took my uncle with him. And my uncle was eventually promoted to the work they were doing at Los Alamos.”
Louis Slotin (on the left) is seen standing next to the Gadget in 1945 at Los Alamos. (Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory.)
... According to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Slotin had planned on returning to teaching but first had to train his replacement.
One of his jobs was performing criticality tests – bringing the core of the bomb to the point before a fission reaction – which was known as "tickling the dragon’s tail."
The test involved having two half-sphere shells of beryllium and a small plutonium core and the closer the two halves got, the stronger the fission reaction was.
To do this test, Slotin would use a screwdriver to separate the two halves. However, on May 21, 1946, Slotin’s hand slipped and it caused the core to go critical.
According to the laboratory, heat and blue light filled the room.
“My uncle jumped on it immediately and pulled the hemispheres apart, stopped the chain reaction and saved the lives of everybody in the lab,” said Ludwig.
While putting himself on the core, Slotin was exposed to a more than lethal dose of radiation and died in hospital nine days later of radiation poisoning. He was 35 years old...
Louis Slotin was born on Dec. 1, 1910, and grew up in Winnipeg’s North End.
By the time he was 16, he went to the University of Manitoba, where he got both his Bachelor's and Master's of Science and by the time he was 25, he had a doctorate in biochemistry from London University...
...after receiving his doctorate, Slotin went to the University of Chicago and started working with Enrico Fermi...
“When Fermi got drafted into the Manhattan Project, he took my uncle with him. And my uncle was eventually promoted to the work they were doing at Los Alamos.”
Louis Slotin (on the left) is seen standing next to the Gadget in 1945 at Los Alamos. (Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory.)
... According to the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Slotin had planned on returning to teaching but first had to train his replacement.
One of his jobs was performing criticality tests – bringing the core of the bomb to the point before a fission reaction – which was known as "tickling the dragon’s tail."
The test involved having two half-sphere shells of beryllium and a small plutonium core and the closer the two halves got, the stronger the fission reaction was.
To do this test, Slotin would use a screwdriver to separate the two halves. However, on May 21, 1946, Slotin’s hand slipped and it caused the core to go critical.
According to the laboratory, heat and blue light filled the room.
“My uncle jumped on it immediately and pulled the hemispheres apart, stopped the chain reaction and saved the lives of everybody in the lab,” said Ludwig.
While putting himself on the core, Slotin was exposed to a more than lethal dose of radiation and died in hospital nine days later of radiation poisoning. He was 35 years old...
