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You're welcome, I hope you enjoy them. If you're at all interested, the official government commission report on the Fukushima Daiichi accident is also a great read. You can download the executive summary for free if you Google it. It's pretty long, if you enjoy it then their book is worth getting.

Okay so I'll say this up front. Most of my information comes from my cousin, a nuke tech, and the following book.

The general concept of a nuclear power plant is you are using the energy and heat from a nuclear reaction to create steam to spin a turbine. That turbine has a north and south pole that when turned within a coil produce electricity.

When they are talking about the core they are talking about the chamber, cooling system, and reaction control system for that nuclear reaction. Chernobyl used graphite control rods to speed up or slow down the reaction as needed for energy production. US Plants use a different system that doesn't involve graphite as the control substrate if I remember correctly.

During this disaster however the control rods didn't insert fully to stop the reaction and the excess heat caused an explosion which blew the top of the reactor core through the roof.

The following is a pretty good illustration of what the reactor core was supposed to look like. The core itself is the red square and figure 24 is what went flying through the roof of the facility.

Anybody else with more or better information feel free to chime in because I'll admit I'm not an expert here, just a history nerd.

I recommend “Chernobyl 01:23:40” by Andrew Leatherbarrow.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0993597505/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3JDBCbRVH6JC8
Really good read, it takes into consideration that not everyone is a Nuclear Physicist and puts a lot of it into layman’s terms.

EDIT: Pretty sure the author sometimes hangs around this subreddit.

The Dead Hand is pretty excellent.


https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Hand-Untold-Dangerous-Legacy/dp/0307387844

Frederick Pohl's fictional novel is certainly worth including, though being written so soon after the event it can only discuss what was known about it at the time which was hardly extensive.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553271938

Here you go!

I bought the kindle edition but it is available in paperback too :)

https://www.amazon.com/Chernobyl-01-Incredible-Nuclear-Disaster-ebook/dp/B01E4MAIS8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539095033&sr=8-1&keywords=1%3A23%3A40

isn't terribly long and a good resource

For the "yes" side:

Chernobyl: The End of the Nuclear Dream
The Legacy of Chernobyl
The Truth About Chernobyl
Ablaze: The Story of the Heroes and Victims of Chernobyl
Chernobyl: The Forbidden Truth
Voices from Chernobyl
Chernobyl Record: The Definitive History of the Chernobyl Catastrophe
Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter
Producing Power: The Pre-Chernobyl History of the Soviet Nuclear Industry
Chernobyl 01:23:40

I'd be interested in any reputable publications for "the other side".

I highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Times-H-Bomb-Pacific-Proving/dp/0345481542/ref=nodl_

The guy who made this imgur set also has a book called "Chernobyl 1:23:40," which I have and have read multiple times. It's a little rough on the grammar, but the story and information are solid and it expands on the imgur post.

https://smile.amazon.com/Chernobyl-01-Incredible-Nuclear-Disaster-ebook/dp/B01E4MAIS8

It is on the Amazon UK site. I pre-ordered it on June 13th. That is the blu-ray link. You can change it to DVD

Chernobyl blu-Ray

I highly suggest reading some of the personal accounts made by people who were actually there that evening before you break out your tinfoil hat. You'll find that you're quite mistaken. Here are a few good primers:

• Voices From Chernobyl
  
• Midnight in Chernobyl
  
• Chernobyl Notebook

Amazon

Author is Andrew Leatherbarrow / u/R_spc

Indeed. I always get a weird feeling when looking at photos or old footage of the time, how the crisis was handled, etc. The catastrophe also marked the ultimate end of "nuclear communism" : Chernobyl NPP was supposed to be the flagship of the whole program... But it finally was just it's own coffin. For further reading on how civil nuclear technology developed and influenced the USSR (including the disaster), I recommend " Red Atom : Russias Nuclear Power Program From Stalin To Today ".

I bet some twitter feminists are gonna run crazy with this, like how man are only concern about their dick, toxic masculinity or shit like that.

But these things were actually used

http://www.m1key.me/photography/chernobyl_questions_answers_2/#09

> The men working on the roof of Chernobyl would wear ordinary cheap imitation-leather booth and what they called the egg basket - a lead protection for their testicles. It's not perfect but may help, although the Chernobyl Liquidators were not considered terribly appropriate partners after the disaster, as people feared genetic disease their offspring might have. [1]
>
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0312425848/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0312425848&linkCode=as2&tag=blogm1keyme-21

There is no one cause, it's very postmodern that way. Sequential cause and effect no longer applies to things today.

There's a book about this called The Age of Catastrophe by John David Ebert which shows how causes and blame for accidents, as well as coordinated effects become more complicated and unknowable through time.

For instance the Titanic accident was confined to a particular place and time. The cause was hubris, rivets and bulkheads. Death-toll is accounted. The blame was with the company etc.

Postmodern events are diffuse. They radiate around the planet, causes are highly complex, blame is not really attributable, number of causalities can't be nailed down etc.

The upshot being things are ramping up toward a planetary catastrophe that will cascade around the world and kill us all off!

https://www.amazon.com/Age-Catastrophe-Disaster-Humanity-Modern/dp/0786471425/

Here you go -

> Disasters, both natural and man-made, are on the rise. Indeed, a catastrophe of one sort or another seems always to be unfolding somewhere on the planet. We have entered into a veritable Age of Catastrophes which have grown both larger and more complex and now routinely very widespread in scope. The old days of the geographically isolated industrial accidents, of the sinking of a Titanic or the explosion of a Hindenburg, together with their isolated causes and limited effects, are over. Now, disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina, the BP oil spill or the Japan tsunami and nuclear reactor accident, threaten to engulf large swaths of civilization. This book analyzes the efforts of Westerners to keep the catastrophes outside, while maintaining order on the inside of society. These efforts are breaking down. Nature and Civilization have become so intertwined they can no longer be separated. Natural disasters, moreover, are becoming increasingly more difficult to differentiate from "man-made."

History is not set in stone today. It's always up for revision now. So you can say, but there's all these conspiracy theories surrounding the Titanic sinking. But that's because of the era we're living through now making things more complex in reflection. At the time of the sinking that wasn't the case. Same goes for Chernobyl and any other historical (and contemporary) events. We live in strange times!