The human body is much stronger and stronger than it seems to him, and it is this that proves the case that Anatoly Bugorsky survived. We can survive unbelievable overloads, and the most terrible accidents, and falls from a great height - all this leaves a considerable chance to survive. If you're lucky.
Accident
Physicist Anatoly Bugorsky accidentally passed a stream of protons through himself and survived after a terrifying radiation dose. Of course, the world around is cruel and harsh, but the human body is ready to withstand it, despite the enduring feeling of insecurity in front of it and its own fragility.
This is probably a built-in protection that holds us back from particularly risky enterprises that we intend to start. But some cases are simply impossible to predict, which happened once at the Institute of High Energy Physics.
This work
In the science city of Protvino, Moscow Region, the above-mentioned institute has long been functioning - since 1963. I must say that he has not been an ordinary institution since its inception. Bugorsky began working there in the seventies, when the Institute of High Energy Physics was already one of the largest scientific enterprises in the country. He worked on accelerators - also the largest in the world. In 1967, the U-70 accelerator appeared at the institute, the same one - "caressed" a scientist so inconsistent, aimed at proton energy up to 70 gigaelectron-volts.
Now the IHEP accelerator complex allows for the broadest international cooperation with the participation of the nuclear research institutions of Dubna (JINR), CERN (Switzerland), various universities and laboratories in Japan, the USA, and Western Europe. Anatoly Bugorsky suffered from the accelerator, which is still not just in service, but also in the forefront. However, the researcher after such an injury was cured, continued to work on it and even managed to defend his dissertation.
Institute now
Research in the field of physics required the creation of a UNK (accelerator-storage complex), which could have appeared already in the 90s, but then the country collapsed and the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Therefore, the financing of science has not only stalled, it has practically ceased. Only the first stage of the EEC was almost built - an accelerator for energy up to six hundred gigaelectron-volts. However, research continued under these conditions.
Fundamental experimental and theoretical studies were carried out regarding the structure of matter at its subnuclear level, and particle interactions at high energies were studied. Experiments in particle beams were prepared and carried out. Experimental installations and accelerators have been created for powerful electrophysics, superconductivity, cryogenic and vacuum technology, accelerator technology, radio electronics, radiation technology, and much more. Even an installation for the treatment of cancerous tumors was created in Protvino, Moscow Region.
What else is useful in IHEP
The Institute of High Energy Physics has launched the production of optics, calorimeters, and scintillators. They produce electromagnets and dosimetric devices there. And they are also engaged in the production of non-standard equipment. They produce radio electronics and offer their own software. The institute provides energy to the city of Protvino. They earn extra money on road transport, installation and repair work.
Funding requires many research and development. Including the creation of EEC and reconstruction of existing accelerators. Also requires investment and modernization of experimental facilities. Money is needed for a radiation safety system, resource-saving technology for the centimeter range of superconducting resonators, and much more. The creative efforts of the team are aimed at creating installations that are highly required by the national economy of Russia - its gas industry, medicine, and energy. Every scientist tries to help the country in its difficult time.
Anatoly Bugorsky and physics
It happened in 1978. As an employee of the institute, Anatoly accidentally fell under a proton beam that passed through his head. The impact of the synchrotron U-70 should have been fatal.
The radiation dose at the entrance alone was two hundred thousand x-rays. At the exit there were three hundred thousand. Six hundred should have been enough for a fatal outcome. Without thousands. Even this is an ultrahigh dose of radiation. In his head, Anatoly, according to his recollections, as if the sun had flashed. But he did not die. True, I had to be treated for a long time.
Outsiders do not enter!
What exactly happened when the physicist Anatoly Bugorsky approached the accelerator? Why are protons not touching us without an accelerator ? Let's try to figure it out. The fact is that in the usual human environment, nuclei of high energies do not occur. But they can be shot, for which there are accelerators.
When there is enough energy, high-energy nuclei react with the nuclei of the atoms that make up a person. And the products of such a reaction can harm up to death. At least oncology is provided. Moscow radiologists classify such a shot as capable of burning a person through and through. That is why all unauthorized persons are strictly forbidden to enter the room where the accelerator is located. He burns even his own.
Why you need a bunch
One proton is not a bullet. He, as physicists say, will not fly through dead skin. But the beam, and in the form of a product of radioactive decay of radionuclides of artificial or natural origin, is extremely dangerous. In principle, the radiation background is always present with us. This is a natural background.
The radioactive decay of helium, for example, makes the nucleus move at a speed of ฮฒ = 0.03 รท 0.06. This is not too fast. Not only through the body, even through clothes, such a core will not pass. It can enter the body with breathing or with water when we drink. This is also a rather sad story, but another case occurred for Anatoly Petrovich Bugorsky.
Go around the bend!
Energies such as at the accelerator, the core can only get in space. Our atmosphere destroys or severely hinders literally all flows. There can be no nuclei with high energies on Earth. However, these favorable facts have a wrong side. The surface of the earth fully admits flows of secondary particles: electrons, ฮณ-quanta, muons, neutrons, protons.
The fact is that they all can have high energies, because they are born from the interaction of cosmic rays, which are highly energetic, and the atmosphere. They develop almost the speed of light. The muons do not harm us, even when passing through in extremely large quantities (as long as this line is being added, through each reader they will fly one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty). But there are others!
Not so friendly
Other particles are not so numerous, but with much less reverence belong to us. The background of cosmic radiation consists entirely of them and has been accompanying us for more than a million years throughout our evolution. You cannot hide from them anywhere, and therefore there is nothing to fear from them. I had to read a lot of literature on this topic, and the hypothesis that it is cosmic radiation that makes mankind mutate is especially good in it. Thanks to these energetic unkind particles, I had to get off the tree and do something. For example, business. Well, or launch the U-70 accelerator.
An atom has a zero rest mass, so it cannot be accelerated to the speed of light without an accelerator, which easily gives it energy up to ultrahigh. Well, depending on whose atom shoots. H +, that is, a hydrogen ion, can also shoot. The rest of our skin will stop. The biological effect is important here - the ionization of oxygen atoms (everyone remembered free radicals right away!), Which threatens oxidative stress. This is exactly what happened with the scientist Bugorsky.
Safety precautions
For accelerators, a complex system of locks is provided, they are protected from outsiders and from "ours" that fall into the work area. Accelerator is dangerous only when it works. In a word, all these June troubles were not to happen; nothing foreshadowed them. Bugorsky needed to go directly inside, to devices that were installed directly along the route of the particle beam from the accelerator. They fly there freely, without any vacuum pipe. Everything was as usual: a call to the remote control to temporarily remove the beam in a certain channel, a path through a concrete labyrinth, through a locked door with an always glowing sign prohibiting entry.
It turned out that the door was unlocked after the last experiment, and the next time the lock was not turned on. The board, however, did not die out because it was turned off, there the light bulb went out. Bugorsky was too passionate in his work. He said that he would be on the accelerator in five minutes, but he ran earlier. Before the operator turned off the accelerator. Leaned towards the appliances. And his head crossed this invisible track. All people from time to time catch particles of high energies. From space, for example. But rarely. And units of particles. And here is a bunch. A grand package of particles. All at once. And not to the whole organism, but purposefully - to the brain. The outbreak was dazzling and deafening. And then - the veil.
Real miracle
The particle accelerator can be seen in the photo. It would seem that there is nothing wrong with this device. However, it was on it that Anatoly Bugorsky received radiation at a much more lethal dose. But a miracle happened. The researcher responsible for the operation of the largest accelerator U-70 in the USSR eliminated some malfunctions inside. As was the case at the institute with safety measures - the story is told above.
Protons pierced through his left hemisphere of the brain, causing a brightest flash - brighter than the sun. There was probably pain, just Anatoly was not able to feel it. In any case, the burnt path on the skin remained from the passage of the beam. And the deep scars are forever left. The left half of the face instantly swollen beyond recognition. The poor scientist was taken to the hospital and began to grieve over his death. This is understandable: all physicists know what dose of radiation Anatoly received. In addition, a bunch of protons flew into the back of the head, shot through the brain, skull and went out on the face. What could one hope for here? But a miracle happened.
The work is still the same
It didnโt happen as expected. Bugorsky did not just survive. He even completely retained his intellectual potential. True, after this accident and illness he began to get tired a little faster, something was constantly noisy in his head, and his left ear was no longer heard. It also paralyzed the left side of the face, as happens after a stroke. But the right side of the face not only stopped aging, but even began to look younger, not in its thirty-six years.
This is due to the fact that the flying proton beam destroyed all the nerves in its path. Sometimes Anatoly felt convulsions, sometimes attacks of epilepsy occurred. But still - he lived, he did not die in an incident from which they do not leave alive. Moreover, he lived a full life, even did not change his work, even completed and defended his thesis. He raised a son (well, his wife helped here). He continued to coordinate physical experiments at his native institute.
Disease history
Intense high-energy proton beam, transverse size 2 x 3 millimeters. Trajectory: from the occipital region through the mediobasal portions of the temporal region to the left, then the temporal bone pyramid, tympanic cavity, middle ear, its bony labyrinth, jaw fossa and left wing of the nose. The radiation dose is two hundred thousand x-rays at the entrance, three hundred thousand at the exit (due to scattering on the tissues). The latter, even if it were three hundred times smaller, still turns out to be more extreme. Got locally and narrowly, but a lot. Too much. The beam went along the only possible trajectory, which allows vital brain centers and vessels not to cross.
The most interesting thing is that Bugorsky did not call for help. He, of course, realized that he was mortally stuck. But, overcoming the veil before his eyes, he completed the work and even recorded his visit in the journal of this channel (such is the order!). He turned to the doctors only the next morning. Not a single doctor could immediately believe in what was told. And then Anatoly was hastily taken to Moscow, to the best radiologists in a specialized hospital. He lay in intensive care. Doctors, of course, did not believe in success: a hole in the head was monstrous, and even radiation was unprecedented. But the treatment materials, of course, were classified. Now, a lot of absurdities happen because of this: to justify receiving social assistance, certificates are needed, but they are not given, this accident is too unique.