Collections · 4 files
Killed by their own work
They died from the very thing they were working on.
Every death in this collection is on the record. Where the cause is a judgement rather than a certainty, we say so. Thomas Midgley is often added to lists like this one, but how he died is disputed, so he is not in it.
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Louis Slotin
One Slip of a Screwdriver Cost Him His Life…
A screwdriver slipped during a test with a plutonium core on 21 May 1946. He died nine days later.
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Clarence Dally
He Tested X-Rays for Edison. Then Lost Both Arms.
He tested Edison's X-ray tubes on his own hands, and died of the damage in 1904, aged 39.
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Franz Reichelt
He Jumped Off the Eiffel Tower to Test His Invention
The police allowed a test with a dummy. On 4 February 1912 he jumped from the Eiffel Tower himself, in his own parachute suit.
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Marie Curie
Her Notebooks Are Still Radioactive
She carried radioactive samples in her pockets, and died in 1934 of aplastic anaemia, most likely caused by radiation.
