Death
Fritz Zwicky, a member of the original Aerojet team, disliked Parsons, and described him as a "dangerous man." This pronouncement would prove prophetic, at least for Parsons himself. On 17 June 1952 Parsons was killed by an explosion of fulminate of mercury at his home laboratory. Though gravely injured, he survived the immediate explosion, but he died of his wounds a few hours later. Distraught, Parsons' mother killed herself just hours after he died.
Unsubstantiated rumors of suicide, murder, or a magical ritual gone wrong have attempted to explain Parsons' death. However, Parsons did store many volatile chemicals and compounds in his laboratory and had been working to finish a contract for a special effects firm.
Read more about this topic: John Whiteside Parsons
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“And anyone is free to condemn me to death
If he leaves it to nature to carry out the sentence.
I shall will to the common stock of air my breath
And pay a death tax of fairly polite repentance.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“According to legend, Dr. Sappington purchased his coffin several years before his death and kept it under his bed, with apples and nuts in it for his visiting grandchildren.”
—Administration in the State of Miss, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself.... Spirit is this power only by looking the negative in the face, and tarrying with it. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being. This power is identical with what we earlier called the Subject.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)