• MataVatnik@lemmy.worldOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    2 months ago

    If I remember correctly he was talking about physicist in the 30s, or one of those decades. Not sure when particle collider research started.

    • Psythik@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 months ago

      Well regardless they were either trolling, or you’re misremembering. Like the other person said, there’s only one known incident of this, and the beam fried part of his brain. Not something you would want to do just to check if the accelerator is working. You’d be completely brain-dead after the 2nd or 3rd time.

      • MataVatnik@lemmy.worldOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Found something, they don’t mention these physicist sticking their head in the beam but this probably points to the origin of the story.

        I’m not misremembering what my professor said, I even remembered the years (1930s) correctly. To quote him more accurately he said “a lot of early particle physicist damaged their vision because they would stick their head on a particle accelerator to check if they had a beam going” and then he proceeded to mimick the motion of dunking his head down bobbing his head back and forth pretending to intercept a beam with his temples.