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The original post: /r/askscience by /u/Big-Buddy4266 on 2024-11-02 03:41:19.

I saw some stories about experiment on this radioactive sphere, dubbed demon core in Los almos where experiments were being done on it to reflect the emitted neutrons back into it to make it go critical. And on two separate instances, the demon core accidentally became critical, which was characterized by a bright blue light, but was immediately knocked over, unfortunately the people working with it passed away. Now my question is, what if it just remained critical because no one knocked it over? What would've happened? Would it just melt from the heat and drip out of the reflective shielding or something much worse?