>>3523303Mostly because he did shit like this:
>In the winter of 1945–1946, Slotin shocked some of his colleagues with a bold action. He repaired an instrument six feet under water inside the Clinton Pile while it was operating, rather than wait an extra day for the reactor to be shut down. He did not wear his dosimetry badge, but his dose was estimated to be at least 100 roentgen.[12] A dose of 1 Gy (~100 roentgen) can cause nausea and vomiting in 10% of cases, but is generally survivable.[13]This is a man who showed up to the lab in cowboy boots and jeans, there's nothing more fitting for the kind of guy who inevitably gets himself killed doing stupid stunts like these.
I mean it's ultimately a shame he died, because he wasn't an idiot so much as he was a fool, but if you're gonna die a fool's death, might as well be the intelligent fool who dies such an unusual death that it goes down in history books.
It was preventable, and he shouldn't have done it, but now it's history, and I can simply just look back on it and be amazed at the kind of balls this took.
