Smokers lungs experience something like 1000x more radiation than a visit near Chernobyl. My dad was a student of von Neumann. In the 50's it was fashionable to smoke, drink martinis, and drink lots of coffee, and exercise was for chumps. My dad didn't live even as long as von Neumann, and died of a heart attack.
Yes, only a “small” significant increase to those nearby. And we’re not talking only about fallout but manipulation in the lab.
It’s specifically your brand of risk downplaying that led to all these early deaths. Things are much safer today because educated folks understand the risks and prepare for them.
What makes you think von Neumann got any exposure in labs? He was a mathematician, not any sort of experimentalist.
The idea that his cancer came from fallout is just moralizing nonsense, the silly logical error of thinking that the universe operates in a way that punishes badness.
He was actually at Los Alamos, he was trained as a chemical engineer; it’s hard to imagine he didn’t get invited to see the demon core and other fun stuff, or otherwise breathe in some particles.
So, you think being in the room with the "demon core" was dangerous even when it wasn't being used? The radiation from it in a non-critical state would have been very small. If he had been there during a criticality accident it would have been recorded.
I think you're just waving your hands here because you have no evidence to support the claim.
Everyone (and many family members) working at SSFL 15 years later died early of contamination. They were careless in those days. Probably had a few buckets of the stuff laying around like at the Grand Canyon gift shop.
Now, SMOKING...