Meeting with the death ray

Since the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, which was, in fact, the first particle accelerator, captured the public attention, many took the question - what happens if the way of his main beam would be a living person?

Well, fortunately (or unfortunately?) We do not need to guess - this is what happened to the Russian scientist Anatoly Bugorskim in 1978. Let's find out how it was ...

3 photos, via





July 13, 1978 Researchers from the Institute of High Energy Physics of the USSR Anatoly Bugorsky during repair synchrotron U-70 (the most powerful at the time of its construction of a particle accelerator in the world) happened to be in the path of the main proton beam accelerator.

The event occurred by chance during a previous experiment high intensity beam was not necessary, therefore automatically lock the door, as it turned out, disconnected. The scoreboard is on the door does not light because of a light bulb. Furthermore, Bugorsky calling on the remote, said that the channel will be in five minutes, and came, apparently, a little earlier than the operator removed the beam. Anatoly Petrovich leaned to the instruments and his head hit the invisible danger zone.

Ray entered his skull on the left of the neck and left to the left of the nose. Various sources differ in their assessment, the quantity of ionizing radiation at this moment received Anatoly, but some say that about 200.000 - 300.000 rad. In any case, the light was strong enough to burn a hole in the bone, skin and brain tissue.



According to Anatoly, the moment he saw a flash, "which was brighter than a thousand suns", but did not feel any pain. Over the next few days the left side of his head horribly swollen, and her skin is beginning to fall off. Bugorsky was taken to Moscow, where doctors prepared to witness his death apparently imminent - but somehow survived Anatoly. To date, the left side of his face paralyzed because of nerve damage, the left ear does not hear, and from time to time he suffers from seizures, but in all other respects Anatoly perfectly healthy. He managed to finish his doctoral thesis and is still alive.

Radiation dose of 200.000 - 300.000 happy if it was absorbed by the human body, it was more than enough for acute radiation sickness and death. If Bugorskogo, proton beam was so narrowly focused that went straight through the body - if it was a little wider, and struck a greater number of cells, Anatoly would surely perish.

To be fair to say that by modern standards the Soviet U-70 - it is a very weak accelerator. When in 2015 will again be running the Large Hadron Collider, he will have the energy of collision of two proton beams of about 70 TeV - is almost 200 times greater than 67 GeV U-70.

Anatoly Bugosky today. You can see that the left side of his face is down slightly due to paralysis, and it does not wrinkle - a consequence of the fact that she had not moved for 26 years.