Man Who Inserted His Head Into a Particle Accelerator In 1978 Recounts the Effects it Has His on His Body

In 1978, a Russian research scientist by the name of Anatoli Bugorski was having a bad day. It turns out that the U-70 synchrotron particle accelerator that cost lots of money to build was malfunctioning. So, he stuck his head in to do a little inspection.

And that’s when the device activated without so much as a warning and propelled particles into him.

But what happened next was truly unbelievable. The resulting beam of light surprised him and left him with some strange side effects that most people will never experience in their lifetime. And this incident from the 1970s wasn’t the only one of its kind.

He Believed in Science

Like most scientists, Anatoli Bugorski always believed that science could be used to change the course of human history. And it’s hard to dispute those beliefs given everything that science has done for humanity over the past couple of decades.

Science Has Benefited Humanity

Thanks to science, humanity has been able to harness huge amounts of energy to propel rockets into outer space. It has also been used to cure diseases and expand the human life span. And where would people be without cell phones and laptops?

But many discoveries come from trial and error, which can sometimes put human lives at risk.

Trial and Error are Parts of Science

To achieve a scientific breakthrough, scientists must first conduct experiments, many of which fail multiple times before success is achieved. Unfortunately, accidents do happen in the name of science, and that’s something Bugorski learned the hard way.

The First Particle Accelerator

The first particle accelerators were invented in the 1930s so scientists could study how matter was structured in more detail. To do this, the machine used magnetism to accelerate particles at a higher rate than normal so they could be observed.