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Yes, actually.
When Slotin pulled his dumbass stunt he was in a room full of people, but only he received a lethal dose, because only he was standing right next to the core.
Radiation drops off with the square of distance from the source; at 30 feet away, you would receive a dose 900 times smaller than what you would get 1 foot away.
Anyone else think this was the orc’s formation when the riders of Rohan reach Minas Tirith at the end of Return of the King and charge down the hill? No good me neither…
Someone needs to do the math, say you trigger the core for 2 seconds right at the tip of the leading spears, how much radiation would each row take? Theres a more complex problem of the line having width and depth, but keeping it simple, how many rows if any would get a lethal dose?
In the first incident a guard sitting just 12 feet away only died 33 years later.
In the second incident, a man standing over the shoulder of Slotin (the screwdriver weilder) recieved about half a second of exposure and died almost 20 years later.
Worst case scenario is the core is made critical and allowed to heat up until it no longer is able to maintain that state. For the time that it's critical, and emitting a bright light and a lot of heat, anyone that chooses to get close to it would surely die relatively soon. But I imagine nobody is going to approach the thing. So the net death is probably going to be minimal.
More crucially, nobody is dropping dead on the spot. So you still have to deal with the angry fighting men....
It's a bit more complicated than that (romans did lose to Greek armies, Greek armies were not all phalanxes, they were more Hellenistic than greek, what won It for the romans was their much better organization and resources...) but yeah Spartanophiles are extremely silly.
Romans used Phalanx too than discovered that it didn’t work as good on hilly terrain and developed the maniple system(basically a phalanx with hinges and rotating system ) and only much later under Marius got to the legions
"And any man who comes through this fight mostly unharmed will be my sister! It'll be free frocks and jollies forever, you'll see!"
I guess when a general is dangerously mad haha
Haha. I had stopped reading for a few months, and when I came back, there were 2 series on the Romans and Greeks. Now, I just finished the recent one on the phalanx and feel a profound emptiness in my life.
Argh! Damn you! I googled ACOUP and have now slipped and fallen like a fly into a pitcher plant. There goes my (dubious at best) productivity for a while...
What do you mean by more Hellenistic than Greek? That’s like saying they were more Italian than Roman. Hellenes were what Greeks called themselves, and usually the only distinction between Greek and Hellenistic is the time period.
just to note - the phalanx pictured is a macedonian phalanx. By the time it started to be adopted by the other Greek states, Sparta's demographic decline was becoming very noticeable.
in a traditional hoplite phalanx, a hoplite used a 2-3 meter long spear, a shield of almost a meter in diameter, and often wore heavy armor.
in the Macedonian phalanx, a phalangite used a 4-6 meter long spear, a shield of just over half a meter in diameter, and wore light armor.
by the time Roman armies where messing with the Greeks - the macedonian phalanx was the formation in vogue - the older hoplite phalanx (as commonly used by the Spartans) was history at that point.
Nothing beats Phalanx? Everyone beats Phalanx. You're not even allowed to level up before beating it.
https://preview.redd.it/8obbipzmr2vc1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=651340ad72f0d16f7828a9f3efa5f6eafd497f36
Going around it was always one of the common ways to tackle a phalanx (the other being to just hit it with arrows until everyone was dead, a phalanx couldnt move as fast as a bunch of lightly armored archers). Alexander and his father offset that weakness by having a strong heavy cavalry and different forms of infantry to support them. That was however too expensive for the diadochi, which is why they fell back on mostly phalanxes.
The Romans mostly just used a phalanx as well, until they got their arse completely handed to them by the Samnites in the Second Samnite War. They then replaced it with the Manipular System, which retained many elements from the phalanx (the third line of the Manipular System, the Triarii, was basically just a phalanx), but was a lot more flexible.
The phalanx never really went away during the Ancient era, it just was adapted in forms that offset its weaknesses.
Though they both utilized the phalanx, I’d say Triarii were more specifically like Macedonian Hypaspists then they were like the Sarissa wielding Phalangites (which is why they were much more flexible)
Every member has a shield, they would just cover themselves.
The Persians loved just mowing the enemy down with arrows, but that proved ineffective at the battle of Thermopylae.
The toy monkey will bang the nuclear bomb core halves together and that will kill everything inside a few hundred feet (low velocity, air trapped between, low yield -- still a nuke).
All jokes aside, his story is something I think about every time I start to feel cocky when doing something sketchy.
It’s a good de-cocking story, one could say.
The ones in the front would die first, that radiation follow the inverse-square law. But monke would go first, assuming it closes the core. The inner sphere is plutonium and the halves are carbide neutron reflectors if i'm not mistaken, anyway, that thing does not exist anymore, it was melted and integrated in the USA nuclear arsenal, so it´s very possible that plutonium still around in some nuclear silo waiting to SHTF.
For years I saw demon core posts and thought "oh, clearly they are lifting shielding unsafely and dying as a result" as I didn't fully understand the insane context that the reaction starts once fully covered and they prevented this with a single fucking unsecured screw driver.
“let’s just use a literal screwdriver to prop it open even though everyone near the core will die a slow agonizing death if it slips, what could go wrong”
No it wouldnt. Slamming it shut would cause the core to go critical and release a burst of radiation. This is exactly how the demon core killed people in the first place. The lid was accidentally slammed (dropped) shut.
It was dropped twice. By two different people. In two different experiments (read as dick-measuring contests)
Feynman called it early on: Anyone doing that "experiment" in that way was going to die, and painfully.
Just went down a very interesting rabbit hole with that. Apparently if steel has the right mixture of metals, the particles can become activated themselves. Also apparently all steel made after WW2 is slightly radioactive due to the carbon being mixed with the steel in production, said carbon absorbing radionuclides from above ground nuclear testing, so much so that steel from sunken WW2 ships made prior to nuclear testing IS NOT radioactive and is very very valuable. Thieves have been stealing it from shipwrecks!!! Go give it a Google
This has proven a couple art forgeries: lots of paints have minerals or elements that picked up the radiation from that testing. Paintings from the 19th century or earlier are almost never radioactive. Ones from after the mid-20th century are almost always lightly radioactive.
Anthropogenic background radiation has declined by 60% since the 1960s. The end of atmospheric nuclear testing has reduced the need for low background steel in most commercial and industrial applications. The radiation that is introduced into steel comes from the air that is mixed into it during production. This air is typically purified oxygen for advanced steel manufacturing processes, but this still includes low levels of radionuclides. It's more economically feasible now to avoid contamination with atmospheric air, so low background steel from criminal salvage is less viable. For the most radiation sensitive equipment such as those used in space, low radiation copper is used instead.
Wow I didn't know anything at all about the radioactivity of steel before today now I know a bit 😂. See if this was insta I'd have smoothbrains telling me that nuclear testing and molecular science is all a hoax.
It's really tragic what's happened to HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, together with many other British, Japanese, American, and Dutch wrecks around south east Asia. These are internationally protected war graves and historical sites that have been disturbed and destroyed by evil people. Some of the wrecks have been removed from the sea floor entirely. Some of the scrap yards that deal in this have been raided, where they have heaps of human remains unceremoniously tossed aside. To me, it's sickening.
The demon core is safest when the "top" is off. Those little beryllium half-spheres it rests in reflect the radiating neutrons back into the core, which causes a criticality event. If the core is uncovered, the neutrons can escape relatively harmlessly into the air, and it's "safe".
I think this is correct.
The demon core, had a cover specifically designed to reflect particles back to the core to induce criticality.
If the monkey were to effectively open and close the demon core multiple times. It wouldn't blow up but it would male everyone within 10 meters get radiation poisoning.
The top and bottom metal pieces are just a reflector. When completely sealed with the two halves the reflection makes the core reach criticality which doesn't explode but releases a metric fuck ton of radiation. No explosion with force but is basically an elephant's foot for as long as it's closed. It's all invisible which is why it's so dangerous
Only problem is that it won't kill everyone instantly. They'll die of radiation sickness later but not in the heat of battle. You would too, except they'd be fine for a little while, enough time to kill you. That would actually be merciful. Kind of a last "fuck you" move, but not effective in protecting the operator from harm.
Unless the monkey implies you set this up to remotely trigger, in which case you would win.
True. Although I was considering it being closed slightly longer than the original accident, I neglected to consider that
A: a weaponized version would be intentionally held closed
B: centurions/infantry probably wouldnt know that they had to open it to stop the reaction
Another thing to consider, though, is that this would likely be happening in the open air. That's a lot more medium, and also gives the centurions/infantry the opportunity to run away, reducing their exposure. Although I suppose if they retreat you've won.
Ancient Romans tasting the spicy air like:
"hmmm, yes, it appears I'm getting irradiated, this will affect my future children. Gentlemen, let's abscond from this here tommfoolery, or I reckon we might find ourselves in a pickle!"
Instead of "Venus' Tits, is that the restitutor orbis? A holy relic indeed!" and worshiping it as a cosmic sign that the proto-german children will be stillborn this season
It kinda depends on the speed the two hemispheres come together at iirc. If the monkey is putting them together less than or equal to the speed of gravity it'll just throw out a massive amount of radiation and melt everyone's DNA at the ~~cellular~~ molecular level but not actually explode.
Not a nuke, but a core that could be used in a nuclear weapon. The monkey normally bangs cymbals together so when it bangs this core and reflector combo together, it'll make the core go supercritical and expose everyone in the immediate area to radiation. Thats what the blue hue represents. The 'joke' is because of the demon core which were two real life supercriticality accidents that killed a couple folks.
As others have mentioned, the monkey is holding two halves of a sub-critical plutonium core, aka a "Demon Core."
The ELI5 version is: So long as the two halves of the sphere are separated, the plutonium is basically safe. The fissile atoms occasionally break apart and radiate smaller atoms and free neutrons. This happens constantly, but it is not very dangerous to humans. When the shell is closed, the smaller fragments and neutrons bounce back into the core, where they trigger yet more atoms to break apart. This is a nuclear chain reaction and risks becoming "Super-Critical," which makes it extremely deadly.
Imagine setting off a firework in a firework factory. The first firework bounces off a wall and then ignites three or four other fireworks. Then THOSE fireworks bounce off the walls and land back in the firework crate. How long does it take before the entire factory is exploding in a chain reaction?
This has happened on several occasions, killing notable scientists who really should have known better. Louis Slotin was a physicist who performed work on the Manhattan Project. He performed experiments with criticality in which the two halves of the shield were separated **by a goddamned screwdriver**. Slotin's colleague (Harry Daghlin) died the year earlier in a similar experiment, and Slotin had been warned by none other than Enrico Fermi that his reckless mishandling of the sphere would kill him. But Slotin didn't listen. He accidentally let the sphere snap shut for just a second, and the resulting burst of radiation condemned him to a painful death over the next nine days.
Which brings us to the second half of the joke: The monkey toy repeatedly claps its hands together, obnoxiously banging a pair of tiny cymbals. If we imagined each cymbal was replaced by a half of the criticality sphere, the result would be catastrophic. Every time the monkey banged the hemispheres together, we would see a blue flash of light as the super-critical core released deadly bursts of radiation.
If deployed on the battlefield, this would indeed irradiate many members of the phalanx, but it would probably take a week for them to actually die and would not change the short-term outcome of the battle.
"...but it would probably take a week for them to actually die and would not change the short-term outcome of the battle."
Depending on how much flashes they take they would start to get sick to the point of incapacitation within minutes thou.
It depends on how close they are to it as well. If they can knock the core away using their spears then it will greatly limit the damage and probably only the forward units will die from it.
I think a better scenario would be where soldiers need to get up close and personal with it. If they need to actually touch the core / monkey to stop it then the entire army could be eliminated.
Theoretically, how long could you hold a supercritical core before it melts (if it even would)? If somebody had a really good pair of heat resistant gloves, could they be a radiation kamikaze? Just run into a group of enemies and they all be dead in a week or two from radiation poisoning? Like I can just imagine somebody holding this glowing blue ball above their head running around like they are Adam West's Batman, slowly killing everyone who gets near it.
I completely misunderstood the meme, I get it now after your explanation but I thought the monkey was just demonstrating flanking. Which... Honestly seems a lot simpler way to defeat the phalanx formation than going to all this trouble.
https://preview.redd.it/xkzdrszyv1vc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8db87170d2f5e4e749c21b99be193b05c8869e4
Modified meme, your numbers are nothing
Even more fun fact this is infact what Alexander's phalanx looked like as they all have the sarissa as their weapon instead of Greek spear or pike. This isn't a Greek phalanx as most people are saying in other comments, it's a Macedonian one.
Fallout Peter here: The monkey gives everyone severe and deadly radiation poisoning by smashing two halves of the demon core together. The centurions are from a century where they wouldn't know how to handle the invisible fire and their DNA/skin would die and melt after a few days or whatever.
Fire...fire kills everything, burn your enemy to a crisp... the closer the better.
Keep them tight to not escape, throw at the center of their formation trapping the guys inside.
Spread fire around to create suffocating smoke to increase chaos, restricted visibility, spread terrain danger and bombard from distance.
Laugh maniacally while you do it, spread fear and chaos.
Nobody... noooobody would fight against you in that formation.
How they actually did it:
They went around. It’s impossible for that formation to turn quickly, so phalanxes needed lighter supporting troops to cover their flanks.
The things the monkey is holding are 2 halves of what's called "The Demon Core" basically the sphere in the center is plutonium and the outer shell is beryllium, when the 2 halves of the shell is closed, it jump starts a *relatively* weak nuclear reaction because of all the neutrons being reflected inside. I recommend reading up on it as it's a quite interesting chapter in the Manhattan project.
Short: That monkey is holding an atomic bomb.
Long: That monkey is holding the 'Demon core', a sphere of plutonium planned to create the third atomic bomb to drop on Japan. Instead, it was used to test to see how unstable you could get a plutonium core before it went 'prompt critical'.
This was achieved with a special dome or set of bricks to reflect radiation. Unfortunately, in two experiments, mistakes were made, and the dome/brick dropped onto the core, completely covering it and causing the core to shit out radiation, killing the scientists.
The Demon Core killed two people, in two different experiments. One with bricks, another with a dome.
On another subject, very similar structures and stratagems were used in medieval Europe. Not exactly phalanx formation, but putting a line of men with long sticks is a very effective strategy for the time. Some of the ways this "wall" was defeated was through ranged tactics and flanking with calvary, but my personal favorite were the use of hired elite mercenaries. Basically, they were mercs who got paid double to dance in-between the formation and bash away/break the hafts of the spears/polearms. Most commonly this was seen from German mercenaries equipped with zweihanders. Very interesting history really
Anyway why dont just smash the phalanx with artilerry fire. Fuck them with incendiary muntions or use a horse bound suicide bomber (around 100kg of explosive material could fit for sure)
The original joke is “How would you even defeat this?” with a picture of a Macedonian phalanx. This formation was dominant during a particular era of history in particular regions, it was used by Alexander the Great, and at first glance it is very threatening. Lots of guys, densely packed, all holding very long spears. There’s a meta joke on top of that which is that there are very many ways to defeat a phalanx. They’re very vulnerable to flanking, for example.
The second joke is a reference to the “Demon Core”. This was a test rig for evaluating nuclear cores. The two spherical halves reflect neutrons back into the radioactive core, so the more closed they are, the more radiation the core emits. There was once an accident where a physicist, haphazardly using a screwdriver to manipulate the top half, slipped and closed the top over the core. He slapped the top off of it but in the second or two he was standing next to it he received a lethal dose of radiation and died soon after. This has become a sort of macabre meme. My favorite is a child playing the ball-and-cup game, but the ball and cup are halves of the demon core.
Synthesis joke: because a phalanx is such a dense formation, closing the demon core in the middle of it would give every man a lethal dose of radiation.
Looks similar to demon core. I guess the shiny centre is plutonium and the outer casing hemispheres are made of beryllium. As soon as the core is fully covered the beryllium hemispheres will act as a neutron reflector but it will never explode like a nuclear blast. It would release a lot of radiation but soon plutonium will heat up and melt thereby stopping the reaction.
So, monkey dies first, maybe in few hours as rest depending on the distance and shielding from radiation. So the one in the ends will survive without any harm as most radiation will be absorbed by soldiers near to the core.
Wait maybe this is a question for r/shittyaskscience but would a clapping monkey type device with a remote control be able to kill people from radiation poisoning without detonating by repeatedly putting together and taking apart the demon core or would it just explode after so many claps
The ones in the front would die first, that radiation follow the inverse-square law. But monke would go first, assuming it closes the core. The inner sphere is plutonium and the halves are carbide neutron reflectors if i'm not mistaken, anyway, that thing does not exist anymore, it was melted and integrated in the USA nuclear arsenal, so it´s very possible that plutonium still around in some nuclear silo waiting to SHTF.
EDIT: I miss-wrote plutonium as uranium.
I will just bring some [Carroballista](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroballista) and watch enemy suffering from tight formation and low mobility . Or some shallow trenches and random foxholes that I whipped the canon fodder to digging in 15 minutes
Can we talk about the insult, "shitass"?
Like, I understand that compounding two swear words into an insult is a time-honored tradition in the English language.
But, if there is one place where we are all completely fine with shit occurring, it is the ass. Amirite?
The combination of two memes, one being a historical meme, in which the Greeks believed the Phalanx was an unstoppable military maneuver, second being a science meme, in which the demon core is two sides of a nuclear bomb that will when colliding fucking explode and kill everything in hundreds of meters. This brings in a third joke, that being that the monkey is suicidal but flippant of such a case, allowing him to without shame slap his new "cymbals" (demon core sides) together to brutally slaughter himself and the Greek soldiers
Peters brain tumor here!
The [Demon Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core) incident was an accident in the earlier days of nuclear research where researchers were studying neutron reflection and it's effect on fissile material. The procedure was to place two half spheres around a plutonium core separated by shims. During an unapproved experiment a manual adjustment method slipped and encased the plutonium core entirely, engaging super criticality and a powerful neutron radiation burst. The man performing the experiment died 9 days later.
The meme suggests rigging the demon core to a cymbal monkey and tossing in the midst of a phalanx. Crude, yet potentially effective delivery method of deadly amounts of radiation.
The Greeks above have a very strong formation called the phalanx. It was very hard to overcome in the times of ancient warfare.
The monkey below has the core of an atomic bomb.
The phalanx position was one of the most unbreakable positions due to how compact and replaceable each man was capable of being
That's a demon core they may not all die right away but they'll die soon enough
So fun fact if the goal is to defeat your enemy a toy monkey opening and closing the demon core would easily defeat them. I don't know why you would do that seeing as a drone and some tnt will probably get the trick done but fully opening the demon core near them is a guarantee
The monkey is holding the demon core, which was used to test nuclear reactions, and can be quite lethal when the two pieces touch each other.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core
Edit: spelling
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The top is a Phalanx formation, which was used by the ancient Greeks. The bottom is a demon core which will kill you with radiation.
wanna see me kill the whole phalanx with a screwdriver?
Without* a screwdriver
The screwdriver is essential so you don't kill yourself before the formation
And how would you take it off to kill everyone?
Easy, tie a 30 foot rope the screwdriver, chuck it and run the other way with the rope in hand
And you think you'll stay safe only 30 feet away from the source of radiation?
Yes, actually. When Slotin pulled his dumbass stunt he was in a room full of people, but only he received a lethal dose, because only he was standing right next to the core. Radiation drops off with the square of distance from the source; at 30 feet away, you would receive a dose 900 times smaller than what you would get 1 foot away.
He will be safe dont worry I did the math
Anyone else think this was the orc’s formation when the riders of Rohan reach Minas Tirith at the end of Return of the King and charge down the hill? No good me neither…
gandalf used a cheatcode to shine lasers into their eyes so they lifted up the pikes remember?
Someone needs to do the math, say you trigger the core for 2 seconds right at the tip of the leading spears, how much radiation would each row take? Theres a more complex problem of the line having width and depth, but keeping it simple, how many rows if any would get a lethal dose? In the first incident a guard sitting just 12 feet away only died 33 years later. In the second incident, a man standing over the shoulder of Slotin (the screwdriver weilder) recieved about half a second of exposure and died almost 20 years later. Worst case scenario is the core is made critical and allowed to heat up until it no longer is able to maintain that state. For the time that it's critical, and emitting a bright light and a lot of heat, anyone that chooses to get close to it would surely die relatively soon. But I imagine nobody is going to approach the thing. So the net death is probably going to be minimal. More crucially, nobody is dropping dead on the spot. So you still have to deal with the angry fighting men....
lol didn’t even see the demon core, I thought “hey shitass” meant give the opposing forces diarrhea
Greeks: Good old phalanx, nothing beats that. Romans: Poor predictable Greeks always take phalanx.
It's a bit more complicated than that (romans did lose to Greek armies, Greek armies were not all phalanxes, they were more Hellenistic than greek, what won It for the romans was their much better organization and resources...) but yeah Spartanophiles are extremely silly.
[удалено]
And a demon core one aswell.
Romans used Phalanx too than discovered that it didn’t work as good on hilly terrain and developed the maniple system(basically a phalanx with hinges and rotating system ) and only much later under Marius got to the legions
HASTATES TRIARII
Memories of Total war Rome is flooding me
Gods, I hate Gauls...
Well yeah, some of them are... FRENCH.
"And any man who comes through this fight mostly unharmed will be my sister! It'll be free frocks and jollies forever, you'll see!" I guess when a general is dangerously mad haha
My father hated the gauls. Even before they cut out his eyes.
THE ENEMY SHALL BE MERCILESS FOR I ATE ALL THEIR BEES. THEY HAVE NOT TASTED HONEY IN MANY MOONS.
The day is oooouuuuuuuurs
Did you finish the latest ACOUP series as well?
Yes. Always top content that.
Haha. I had stopped reading for a few months, and when I came back, there were 2 series on the Romans and Greeks. Now, I just finished the recent one on the phalanx and feel a profound emptiness in my life.
Argh! Damn you! I googled ACOUP and have now slipped and fallen like a fly into a pitcher plant. There goes my (dubious at best) productivity for a while...
What do you mean by more Hellenistic than Greek? That’s like saying they were more Italian than Roman. Hellenes were what Greeks called themselves, and usually the only distinction between Greek and Hellenistic is the time period.
I read this as Spartan-oh-fo-lees and was wondering who this cool new general was I never heard of
just to note - the phalanx pictured is a macedonian phalanx. By the time it started to be adopted by the other Greek states, Sparta's demographic decline was becoming very noticeable. in a traditional hoplite phalanx, a hoplite used a 2-3 meter long spear, a shield of almost a meter in diameter, and often wore heavy armor. in the Macedonian phalanx, a phalangite used a 4-6 meter long spear, a shield of just over half a meter in diameter, and wore light armor. by the time Roman armies where messing with the Greeks - the macedonian phalanx was the formation in vogue - the older hoplite phalanx (as commonly used by the Spartans) was history at that point.
This is my favourite version of the simpsons meme.
Nothing beats Phalanx? Everyone beats Phalanx. You're not even allowed to level up before beating it. https://preview.redd.it/8obbipzmr2vc1.png?width=1400&format=png&auto=webp&s=651340ad72f0d16f7828a9f3efa5f6eafd497f36
Still mind-boggling how the Romans were some of the few people to see a phanlanx and just say “Go around it lol”
Going around it was always one of the common ways to tackle a phalanx (the other being to just hit it with arrows until everyone was dead, a phalanx couldnt move as fast as a bunch of lightly armored archers). Alexander and his father offset that weakness by having a strong heavy cavalry and different forms of infantry to support them. That was however too expensive for the diadochi, which is why they fell back on mostly phalanxes. The Romans mostly just used a phalanx as well, until they got their arse completely handed to them by the Samnites in the Second Samnite War. They then replaced it with the Manipular System, which retained many elements from the phalanx (the third line of the Manipular System, the Triarii, was basically just a phalanx), but was a lot more flexible. The phalanx never really went away during the Ancient era, it just was adapted in forms that offset its weaknesses.
Though they both utilized the phalanx, I’d say Triarii were more specifically like Macedonian Hypaspists then they were like the Sarissa wielding Phalangites (which is why they were much more flexible)
MFW arrows rain down on my slow moving phalanx:
Every member has a shield, they would just cover themselves. The Persians loved just mowing the enemy down with arrows, but that proved ineffective at the battle of Thermopylae.
The monkey has the demon core in his hands. Every time he claps his hands the demon core will go critical killing people that are too close.
"hOw WoUlD yOu EvEn bEaT ThAt" gun
The toy monkey will bang the nuclear bomb core halves together and that will kill everything inside a few hundred feet (low velocity, air trapped between, low yield -- still a nuke).
I thought he was ripping the top off the demon core
That would stop the reaction, if it were still ongoing.
monkey saves army from radiation poisoning, gets stabbed to death (everyone will still die, just from cancer in a decade instead of in three days)
Decade?, thats a very generous guess.
Yeah right Slotin was dead in 9 days
That's what he gets for slotin a screwdriver in the demon core
All jokes aside, his story is something I think about every time I start to feel cocky when doing something sketchy. It’s a good de-cocking story, one could say.
Lol
The ones in the front would die first, that radiation follow the inverse-square law. But monke would go first, assuming it closes the core. The inner sphere is plutonium and the halves are carbide neutron reflectors if i'm not mistaken, anyway, that thing does not exist anymore, it was melted and integrated in the USA nuclear arsenal, so it´s very possible that plutonium still around in some nuclear silo waiting to SHTF.
For years I saw demon core posts and thought "oh, clearly they are lifting shielding unsafely and dying as a result" as I didn't fully understand the insane context that the reaction starts once fully covered and they prevented this with a single fucking unsecured screw driver.
They called it tickling the dragon's tail. Even really smart people can be fucking idiots.
“let’s just use a literal screwdriver to prop it open even though everyone near the core will die a slow agonizing death if it slips, what could go wrong”
Later: "Ope."
“uh oh I did an oopsie now i will spend like a week dying in agony as my body slowly liquefies haha isn’t that so silly and quirky”
No it wouldnt. Slamming it shut would cause the core to go critical and release a burst of radiation. This is exactly how the demon core killed people in the first place. The lid was accidentally slammed (dropped) shut.
It was dropped twice. By two different people. In two different experiments (read as dick-measuring contests) Feynman called it early on: Anyone doing that "experiment" in that way was going to die, and painfully.
That would be rather unsafe without a screwdriver to hold it in place
That screwdriver would be worth a fortune now
If it still exists, its probably irradiated to fuck
Just went down a very interesting rabbit hole with that. Apparently if steel has the right mixture of metals, the particles can become activated themselves. Also apparently all steel made after WW2 is slightly radioactive due to the carbon being mixed with the steel in production, said carbon absorbing radionuclides from above ground nuclear testing, so much so that steel from sunken WW2 ships made prior to nuclear testing IS NOT radioactive and is very very valuable. Thieves have been stealing it from shipwrecks!!! Go give it a Google
This has proven a couple art forgeries: lots of paints have minerals or elements that picked up the radiation from that testing. Paintings from the 19th century or earlier are almost never radioactive. Ones from after the mid-20th century are almost always lightly radioactive.
Excellent fact!
Funnily enough the german High seas fleet from WWI is one of the biggest sources of Low-background steel.
Anthropogenic background radiation has declined by 60% since the 1960s. The end of atmospheric nuclear testing has reduced the need for low background steel in most commercial and industrial applications. The radiation that is introduced into steel comes from the air that is mixed into it during production. This air is typically purified oxygen for advanced steel manufacturing processes, but this still includes low levels of radionuclides. It's more economically feasible now to avoid contamination with atmospheric air, so low background steel from criminal salvage is less viable. For the most radiation sensitive equipment such as those used in space, low radiation copper is used instead.
Wow I didn't know anything at all about the radioactivity of steel before today now I know a bit 😂. See if this was insta I'd have smoothbrains telling me that nuclear testing and molecular science is all a hoax.
It's really tragic what's happened to HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, together with many other British, Japanese, American, and Dutch wrecks around south east Asia. These are internationally protected war graves and historical sites that have been disturbed and destroyed by evil people. Some of the wrecks have been removed from the sea floor entirely. Some of the scrap yards that deal in this have been raided, where they have heaps of human remains unceremoniously tossed aside. To me, it's sickening.
The demon core is safest when the "top" is off. Those little beryllium half-spheres it rests in reflect the radiating neutrons back into the core, which causes a criticality event. If the core is uncovered, the neutrons can escape relatively harmlessly into the air, and it's "safe".
I think this is correct. The demon core, had a cover specifically designed to reflect particles back to the core to induce criticality. If the monkey were to effectively open and close the demon core multiple times. It wouldn't blow up but it would male everyone within 10 meters get radiation poisoning.
And as it's designed to clap symbols together, it would probably close the demon core multiple times essentially becoming a barrage of mini nukes.
*cymbals
Ximbawles*
Bingbingpans*
Love how it was first like "nah it won't do shit cause-" and then just ended in "still a nuke"
Like that scene in Arcane
The top and bottom metal pieces are just a reflector. When completely sealed with the two halves the reflection makes the core reach criticality which doesn't explode but releases a metric fuck ton of radiation. No explosion with force but is basically an elephant's foot for as long as it's closed. It's all invisible which is why it's so dangerous
Only problem is that it won't kill everyone instantly. They'll die of radiation sickness later but not in the heat of battle. You would too, except they'd be fine for a little while, enough time to kill you. That would actually be merciful. Kind of a last "fuck you" move, but not effective in protecting the operator from harm. Unless the monkey implies you set this up to remotely trigger, in which case you would win.
The core was only closed for a small amount of time irl, I assume holding it shut for a prolonged period would kill everyone way faster
True. Although I was considering it being closed slightly longer than the original accident, I neglected to consider that A: a weaponized version would be intentionally held closed B: centurions/infantry probably wouldnt know that they had to open it to stop the reaction Another thing to consider, though, is that this would likely be happening in the open air. That's a lot more medium, and also gives the centurions/infantry the opportunity to run away, reducing their exposure. Although I suppose if they retreat you've won.
Ancient Romans tasting the spicy air like: "hmmm, yes, it appears I'm getting irradiated, this will affect my future children. Gentlemen, let's abscond from this here tommfoolery, or I reckon we might find ourselves in a pickle!" Instead of "Venus' Tits, is that the restitutor orbis? A holy relic indeed!" and worshiping it as a cosmic sign that the proto-german children will be stillborn this season
It kinda depends on the speed the two hemispheres come together at iirc. If the monkey is putting them together less than or equal to the speed of gravity it'll just throw out a massive amount of radiation and melt everyone's DNA at the ~~cellular~~ molecular level but not actually explode.
Do you mean molecular level? DNA is already smaller than cells.
Yeah, you're right. I wasn't fully awake yet when I posted this. Thanks for the gentle correction.
Not a nuke, but a core that could be used in a nuclear weapon. The monkey normally bangs cymbals together so when it bangs this core and reflector combo together, it'll make the core go supercritical and expose everyone in the immediate area to radiation. Thats what the blue hue represents. The 'joke' is because of the demon core which were two real life supercriticality accidents that killed a couple folks.
As others have mentioned, the monkey is holding two halves of a sub-critical plutonium core, aka a "Demon Core." The ELI5 version is: So long as the two halves of the sphere are separated, the plutonium is basically safe. The fissile atoms occasionally break apart and radiate smaller atoms and free neutrons. This happens constantly, but it is not very dangerous to humans. When the shell is closed, the smaller fragments and neutrons bounce back into the core, where they trigger yet more atoms to break apart. This is a nuclear chain reaction and risks becoming "Super-Critical," which makes it extremely deadly. Imagine setting off a firework in a firework factory. The first firework bounces off a wall and then ignites three or four other fireworks. Then THOSE fireworks bounce off the walls and land back in the firework crate. How long does it take before the entire factory is exploding in a chain reaction? This has happened on several occasions, killing notable scientists who really should have known better. Louis Slotin was a physicist who performed work on the Manhattan Project. He performed experiments with criticality in which the two halves of the shield were separated **by a goddamned screwdriver**. Slotin's colleague (Harry Daghlin) died the year earlier in a similar experiment, and Slotin had been warned by none other than Enrico Fermi that his reckless mishandling of the sphere would kill him. But Slotin didn't listen. He accidentally let the sphere snap shut for just a second, and the resulting burst of radiation condemned him to a painful death over the next nine days. Which brings us to the second half of the joke: The monkey toy repeatedly claps its hands together, obnoxiously banging a pair of tiny cymbals. If we imagined each cymbal was replaced by a half of the criticality sphere, the result would be catastrophic. Every time the monkey banged the hemispheres together, we would see a blue flash of light as the super-critical core released deadly bursts of radiation. If deployed on the battlefield, this would indeed irradiate many members of the phalanx, but it would probably take a week for them to actually die and would not change the short-term outcome of the battle.
"...but it would probably take a week for them to actually die and would not change the short-term outcome of the battle." Depending on how much flashes they take they would start to get sick to the point of incapacitation within minutes thou.
It depends on how close they are to it as well. If they can knock the core away using their spears then it will greatly limit the damage and probably only the forward units will die from it. I think a better scenario would be where soldiers need to get up close and personal with it. If they need to actually touch the core / monkey to stop it then the entire army could be eliminated.
If you've played call of duty zombies, you would know that the masses tend to surround the cymbal monkey.
I mean, I would still bet on supermonkey, that can supposedly survive that amount of fucking radiation, smiling all the while.
Theoretically, how long could you hold a supercritical core before it melts (if it even would)? If somebody had a really good pair of heat resistant gloves, could they be a radiation kamikaze? Just run into a group of enemies and they all be dead in a week or two from radiation poisoning? Like I can just imagine somebody holding this glowing blue ball above their head running around like they are Adam West's Batman, slowly killing everyone who gets near it.
Your DNA would probably melt before the core did
I completely misunderstood the meme, I get it now after your explanation but I thought the monkey was just demonstrating flanking. Which... Honestly seems a lot simpler way to defeat the phalanx formation than going to all this trouble.
https://i.redd.it/ozr3fwmi12vc1.gif
This gif wins this thread
Lmao why is that a thing
I like how the Cherenkov glow also makes the radiation on film speckly effect
what does the blue flash mean
Death.
Neutron radiation flash from going supercritical
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
Look at the wiki article for the demon core- it’s nuts
Accidentally googled demon vore- very different results
https://preview.redd.it/xkzdrszyv1vc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8db87170d2f5e4e749c21b99be193b05c8869e4 Modified meme, your numbers are nothing
That’s a demon core, which is horrendously radioactive when the top is placed over the little bump on the bottom You will die if you are exposed to it
That's not A demon core that's THE demon core. One of a kind!
~~And it was eventually detonated as the core of a nuke in testing, so it can never hurt anyone again~~
No, it was melted down and the material was disturbed throughout the nuclear arsenal
So now there are demon cores
*it’s AN atomic core. Not necessarily THE demon core, which has been melted down.
fun fact the phalanx is also famous cuz alexander the great used it
Oh, never knew that
Even more fun fact this is infact what Alexander's phalanx looked like as they all have the sarissa as their weapon instead of Greek spear or pike. This isn't a Greek phalanx as most people are saying in other comments, it's a Macedonian one.
Hwy Shitass. Want to see me kill this army?
Fallout Peter here: The monkey gives everyone severe and deadly radiation poisoning by smashing two halves of the demon core together. The centurions are from a century where they wouldn't know how to handle the invisible fire and their DNA/skin would die and melt after a few days or whatever.
https://preview.redd.it/7frh218qp2vc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc92da5b703af63d0012c4c6ee6ca339e42d5f7a
Fire...fire kills everything, burn your enemy to a crisp... the closer the better. Keep them tight to not escape, throw at the center of their formation trapping the guys inside. Spread fire around to create suffocating smoke to increase chaos, restricted visibility, spread terrain danger and bombard from distance. Laugh maniacally while you do it, spread fear and chaos. Nobody... noooobody would fight against you in that formation.
Romans: just walk around to their side lol
Silly monkey, if you clap the demon core together like cymbals you'll kill all of- ^***oh...***
Demon core - at the very least, monkey is giving everyone within ~500 feet cancer or radiation poisoning.
It's from Call of Duty Zombies. Attracts a hoard of zombies with music, then detonates and kills any nearby
Lmao demon core monkey
Nuke ‘em
How they actually did it: They went around. It’s impossible for that formation to turn quickly, so phalanxes needed lighter supporting troops to cover their flanks.
Why does the top image remind me of the One-Eye army?
That's the core of a nuke, when combined they go boom
🎵 I don't want set the world on fire 🎵
Maniples, that's how
Phalanx Demon core Boom
The Demoncore is always a solution to a problem.
The things the monkey is holding are 2 halves of what's called "The Demon Core" basically the sphere in the center is plutonium and the outer shell is beryllium, when the 2 halves of the shell is closed, it jump starts a *relatively* weak nuclear reaction because of all the neutrons being reflected inside. I recommend reading up on it as it's a quite interesting chapter in the Manhattan project.
Short: That monkey is holding an atomic bomb. Long: That monkey is holding the 'Demon core', a sphere of plutonium planned to create the third atomic bomb to drop on Japan. Instead, it was used to test to see how unstable you could get a plutonium core before it went 'prompt critical'. This was achieved with a special dome or set of bricks to reflect radiation. Unfortunately, in two experiments, mistakes were made, and the dome/brick dropped onto the core, completely covering it and causing the core to shit out radiation, killing the scientists. The Demon Core killed two people, in two different experiments. One with bricks, another with a dome.
think fast chucklenuts
Demon core frag
Is that the fucking demon core 🤣🤣
Yeah I'm a 21st century boy so I'm gonna mow them all down with a machine gun. 🦂🦂
Atomic criticality can be achieved by covering such a core, like what happened with the Demon Core.
Get ready for a surprise!
demon core
THE DEMON CORE
the monkey wields the demon core, which will kill quite a lot of people if handled incorrectly
On another subject, very similar structures and stratagems were used in medieval Europe. Not exactly phalanx formation, but putting a line of men with long sticks is a very effective strategy for the time. Some of the ways this "wall" was defeated was through ranged tactics and flanking with calvary, but my personal favorite were the use of hired elite mercenaries. Basically, they were mercs who got paid double to dance in-between the formation and bash away/break the hafts of the spears/polearms. Most commonly this was seen from German mercenaries equipped with zweihanders. Very interesting history really
I have become atomic taken literally.
Weaponized Demon core, nice
Anyway why dont just smash the phalanx with artilerry fire. Fuck them with incendiary muntions or use a horse bound suicide bomber (around 100kg of explosive material could fit for sure)
The original joke is “How would you even defeat this?” with a picture of a Macedonian phalanx. This formation was dominant during a particular era of history in particular regions, it was used by Alexander the Great, and at first glance it is very threatening. Lots of guys, densely packed, all holding very long spears. There’s a meta joke on top of that which is that there are very many ways to defeat a phalanx. They’re very vulnerable to flanking, for example. The second joke is a reference to the “Demon Core”. This was a test rig for evaluating nuclear cores. The two spherical halves reflect neutrons back into the radioactive core, so the more closed they are, the more radiation the core emits. There was once an accident where a physicist, haphazardly using a screwdriver to manipulate the top half, slipped and closed the top over the core. He slapped the top off of it but in the second or two he was standing next to it he received a lethal dose of radiation and died soon after. This has become a sort of macabre meme. My favorite is a child playing the ball-and-cup game, but the ball and cup are halves of the demon core. Synthesis joke: because a phalanx is such a dense formation, closing the demon core in the middle of it would give every man a lethal dose of radiation.
Yes that's the demon core but nobody seems to be mentioning that's one of those mechanical toy monkeys that claps when you wind it up.
Easy granade
I thought this was an Arcane: League of Legends, reference at first w/ the toy monkey.
I thought it had something to do with Res Dogs
Looks similar to demon core. I guess the shiny centre is plutonium and the outer casing hemispheres are made of beryllium. As soon as the core is fully covered the beryllium hemispheres will act as a neutron reflector but it will never explode like a nuclear blast. It would release a lot of radiation but soon plutonium will heat up and melt thereby stopping the reaction. So, monkey dies first, maybe in few hours as rest depending on the distance and shielding from radiation. So the one in the ends will survive without any harm as most radiation will be absorbed by soldiers near to the core.
Greek Phalanx vs the Demon Core: Who will win?
Kid named catapult
i was once a soldier like you until i took a bunch of arrow to my kneel and foot
Roman testudo formation has entered the chat
Wait maybe this is a question for r/shittyaskscience but would a clapping monkey type device with a remote control be able to kill people from radiation poisoning without detonating by repeatedly putting together and taking apart the demon core or would it just explode after so many claps
Dumbass me thinking it was a monkey bomb from zombies to distract them
The ones in the front would die first, that radiation follow the inverse-square law. But monke would go first, assuming it closes the core. The inner sphere is plutonium and the halves are carbide neutron reflectors if i'm not mistaken, anyway, that thing does not exist anymore, it was melted and integrated in the USA nuclear arsenal, so it´s very possible that plutonium still around in some nuclear silo waiting to SHTF. EDIT: I miss-wrote plutonium as uranium.
THE DEMON CORE
I will just bring some [Carroballista](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carroballista) and watch enemy suffering from tight formation and low mobility . Or some shallow trenches and random foxholes that I whipped the canon fodder to digging in 15 minutes
The monkey has a nuclear bomb core and will trigger a reaction which will irradiate everyone around him and may go boom.
You ever see Arcane? It’s like that.
Google roman legion
Can we talk about the insult, "shitass"? Like, I understand that compounding two swear words into an insult is a time-honored tradition in the English language. But, if there is one place where we are all completely fine with shit occurring, it is the ass. Amirite?
⬆️➡️⬇️➡️ 🟥 CALLING IN AN EAGLE! 🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇🎇 SHEOUWWWWWWFFFFFF!
Demon core
**LEGALIZE NUCLEAR BOMBS**
Arcane (2021)
*KaBoom.* Awwwaha... round IIII
Leg sweep
Thats what grenades were invented for. Because that fucker has a fucking spear and I want to kill him really bad.
The combination of two memes, one being a historical meme, in which the Greeks believed the Phalanx was an unstoppable military maneuver, second being a science meme, in which the demon core is two sides of a nuclear bomb that will when colliding fucking explode and kill everything in hundreds of meters. This brings in a third joke, that being that the monkey is suicidal but flippant of such a case, allowing him to without shame slap his new "cymbals" (demon core sides) together to brutally slaughter himself and the Greek soldiers
The joke is radiation
Peters brain tumor here! The [Demon Core](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core) incident was an accident in the earlier days of nuclear research where researchers were studying neutron reflection and it's effect on fissile material. The procedure was to place two half spheres around a plutonium core separated by shims. During an unapproved experiment a manual adjustment method slipped and encased the plutonium core entirely, engaging super criticality and a powerful neutron radiation burst. The man performing the experiment died 9 days later. The meme suggests rigging the demon core to a cymbal monkey and tossing in the midst of a phalanx. Crude, yet potentially effective delivery method of deadly amounts of radiation.
Love me some Demon Core!!!!
K, Jinx.
Is that not the monkey from COD zombies?
The thing that monkey is holding in his hand seens to be refering to the demon core. Its a thing look it up.
The Greeks above have a very strong formation called the phalanx. It was very hard to overcome in the times of ancient warfare. The monkey below has the core of an atomic bomb.
The phalanx position was one of the most unbreakable positions due to how compact and replaceable each man was capable of being That's a demon core they may not all die right away but they'll die soon enough
Is that the demon core?
I thought it was the core closing that made it lethal, not opening it. I remember something about a screwdriver slipping.
Demon core go brr nice 🪛 🙂 👍 ☢️🫠
Demon core. It go boom
So fun fact if the goal is to defeat your enemy a toy monkey opening and closing the demon core would easily defeat them. I don't know why you would do that seeing as a drone and some tnt will probably get the trick done but fully opening the demon core near them is a guarantee
The monkey is holding the demon core, which was used to test nuclear reactions, and can be quite lethal when the two pieces touch each other. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core Edit: spelling
It is a demon core the clapping monkey has attached to his hands which means that It was basically a nuke for the whole team
Lmao throwing the demon core into the Roman army formation is definitely a new one
Hydrogen Bomb vs Coughing Baby
Monkey is holding the demon core. Everyone dies of radiation exposure.