11. Louis Slotin helped invent the atomic bomb and was then killed in a radiation accident at Los Alamos
Louis Alexander Slotin was one of the brightest minds of his generation. Born in 1910, he left his native Canada to study for a doctorate in chemistry in London. After that, he worked as a research associate in Chicago before he was invited to join the top-secret team working to develop an atomic bomb. Slotin was a key member of the Manhattan Project. His work at the Los Alamos National Laboratory focused on determining the critical mass values of uranium and plutonium. It was a subject that fascinated him. But the very pioneering research he was working on would end up killing him.
In May of 1946, Slotin was working in his lab when he had an accident. A slip of the hand accidentally set off a fission reaction. A hard burst of radiation was emitted – and hit Slotin full-on. According to the legend, Slotin threw himself over the radioactive material, shielding his colleagues and possibly saving their lives. As an expert in his field, he would have realized that he had been exposed to a fatal dose. Sure enough, his condition rapidly deteriorated and he died less than two weeks later.
