Thread by @atomicthumbs

death fixture

if you lie under this while it's turned on you will die

this is a scan horn attached to the end of a particle accelerator to direct the beam. it scans 50 milliamps of 3 MeV electrons across subjects at 100 hz. the beam ionizes the air it passes through. the beam emits hard x-rays. if you can see the beam you are in serious danger

this is my favorite video. this is what it's like to be killed by this thing

the white dots are x-rays hitting the camera sensor they bypass the shielded enclosure by entering through the lens and its cutout. note how you can see them before you can see the beam, because they pass through the walls

this man (depicted in reenactment) was exposed to the beam of a similar accelerator, whose electron source filament was unpowered.

just the dark current from stray electrons subject to the acceleration voltage put 55 Gy into his fingers, most of which he eventually lost

to do this, the operator walked through an unlocked chainlink gate, past an interlock sensor that had been bypassed with an unapproved on/off switch, ducked under the one working interlock, and did not step on the pressure mat interlock (it had been removed some time previously)

placing one's hands under the scan horn window is not a good way to see if the window has overheated.

Nor is walking around in the beam chamber with a meter and sticking dosimetry badges under the scan horn a good way to determine one's radiation exposure

How could this have been allowed to happen? The answer, as usual when it comes to radiation accidents, is "the management fucked up repeatedly and blatantly, placing the worker in danger with insufficient training and absent safety culture"

i forgot to mention what these accelerators are for. mostly you run plastics under them and they become different en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-lin…