Chilling four-word reaction from scientist before he was killed after touching 'most dangerous object ever'

Some objects are so obviously hazardous that even non-scientists stay well clear, yet one unfortunate individual managed to touch the world's 'most dangerous object' and knew immediately that his fate was sealed.

The Manhattan Project is one of the most devastating and impactful acts to have been carried out across modern history, as it resulted in the creation of the atomic bomb, which killed around 220,000 people across Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Led by Robert Oppenheimer, the project saw a team of scientists work to create the world's first nuclear weapon in a secret research center in Los Alamos, Texas.

While the work they were carrying out was dangerous without a doubt, one scientist suffered a death that could have been avoided after touching what is considered by many to be the most dangerous object in the world, and his immediate four-word reaction revealed that he knew what fate awaited him.

Slotin played a key role at Oppenheimer's secret research facility in Los Alamos (Keystone/Getty Images)

As reported by the BBC, it all began when physicist Louis Slotin – who worked at Los Alamos – was showing his replacement Alvin Graves around the facility.

Graves spotted the 'critical assembly' while being shown around, which was effectively the test that scientists used to work towards the eventual finished nuclear weapon, and commented that he had never seen the process demonstrated.

Likely looking to give the new start the perfect introduction, Slotin offered to run through the process, to which his colleague Raemer Schreiber agreed, albeit half-heartedly encouraging him to be careful.

Reports over what exactly happened remain unclear as those at the event have provided conflicting views, but the fact is that Slotin user a screwdriver to support the lowering of the upper hemisphere over the core, before the screwdriver slipped, dropping the upper reflector directly onto the core.

Writing in his official report, Schreiber revealed that he "saw a blue flash... and felt a heat wave simultaneously," although the process itself only happened across "a few tenths of a second."

Slotin's accident involved the critical assembly, exposing himself to deadly levels of nuclear radiation (National Museum of Nuclear Science & History)

Slotin managed to flip the upper reflector off the core and onto the floor, but it was clearly too late and his four-word reaction said it all:

"Well, that does it," Slotin quietly expressed, and he knew that the radiation he had been exposed to would eventually lead to his death.

It took just nine days for Slotin to succumb to the effects of the radiation by the way of organ failure, and is a tragic story where even the most experienced scientists can falter at the worst possible times.

Recreations of the accident have suggested that Slotin played a larger role than he might have expected in what unfolded, as his hand on the upper reflector acted as an additional neutron reflector, likely causing the core to go critical.

He was warned about this by his boss Enrico Fermi, who told Slotin that he would "be dead within the year if you keep doing that," yet he failed to adapt from these warnings and it inevitably led to his demise.