system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
How much radiation did the Demon Core put out when not shielded with Beryllium?

Louis Sloten received around 1,000 rads of radiation when the screwdriver slipped on the top beryllium sphere causing the core to go prompt critical.

I am having a hard time finding information about how much radiation the core was putting out by itself when neutrons were not being reflected back into the core. Scientists were apparently handling the core often so my guess is that it wasn't *that* lethal by itself but I can't find any documentation on how much radiation the core put out normally.
gpt
It's hard to give a single number for a multiplying system, because it depends on the surroundings of the object as well as what materials it contains.

If you have a ~ few kilogram sphere of plutonium completely on its own with no moderating/reflecting material nearby, it maybe produces a dose rate on the order of ~100 mrem/hr on contact each for neutrons and gamma rays.

But as soon as you pick it up with your hands, or even stand near it, you're introducing moderating material to the system (your body, which contains a lot of water), and the dose rate increases.

As long as it's kept subcritical, you can hold it in your hands for minutes or hours without accruing too much of a dose.

But if the multiplication k*_eff_* is brought above 1, then you have an exponentially increasing neutron population until thermal effects expand the sphere enough to bring it back to sub-criticality. But the total dose received by anybody nearby during that criticality excursion can be fatal, and *was* in the case of the demon core.