The Radioactive Boy Scout - The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor

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Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 621.483092 EAN: 9780812966602 ISBN: 0812966600 Label: Villard Manufacturer: Villard Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 209 Publication Date: January 11, 2005 Publisher: Villard Release Date: January 11, 2005 Sales Rank: 238990 Studio: Villard Related Items: The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are The Plutonium Files: America's Secret Medical Experiments in the Cold War To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design Napoleon's Buttons (pb reprint) Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy see more Editorial Review: Product Description: Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science. While he was working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David’s obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a model nuclear reactor in his backyard garden shed. Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the U.S. government and from industry experts. Following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation. His wholly unsupervised project finally sparked an environmental emergency that put his town’s forty thousand suburbanites at risk. The EPA ended up burying his lab at a radioactive dumpsite in Utah. This offbeat account of ambition and, ultimately, hubris has the narrative energy of a first-rate thriller. Download Description: Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science, and his basement experiments -- building homemade fireworks, brewing moonshine, and concocting his own self-tanning lotion -- were more ambitious than those of other boys. While working on his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, David's obsessive attention turned to nuclear energy. Throwing caution to the wind, he plunged into a new project: building a nuclear breeder reactor in his backyard garden shed. In The Radioactive Boy Scout, veteran journalist Ken Silverstein recreates in brilliant detail the months of David's improbable nuclear quest. Posing as a physics professor, David solicited information on reactor design from the U.S. government and from industry experts. (Ironically, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was his number one source of information.) Scavenging antiques stores and junkyards for old-fashioned smoke detectors and gas lanterns -- both of which contain small amounts of radioactive material -- and following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation. His unsanctioned and wholly unsupervised project finally sparked an environmental catastrophe that put his town's forty thousand residents at risk and caused the EPA to shut down his lab and bury it at a radioactive dumpsite in Utah. An outrageous account of ambition and, ultimately, hubris that sits comfortably on the shelf next to such offbeat science books as Driving Mr. Albert and stories of grand capers like Catch Me If You Can, The Radioactive Boy Scout is a real-life adventure with the narrative energy of a first-rate thriller. "Anyone who has ever wondered what the neighborhood geek might be brewing up in his backyard should read The Radioactive Boy Scout. This is a riveting and disturbing story about the power of the teenage mind -- and the sparks that fly when a nuclear family melts down."    DAVID KUSHNER, AUTHOR OF MASTERS OF DOOM Customer Reviews Average Rating: Rating: - Excellent Book This is an excellent non-fiction quick read at just under 200 pages. It is a true story about a teenager, David Hahn, who ventured to build a nuclear breeder reactor with little protection from radioactivity. He used a potting shed as a laboratory and a few old college textbooks from his dad for knowledge on radioactive materials. David became increasingly secluded at school as he continued to experiment with dangerous chemistry. His grades dropped, and no one believed he could do anything to raise ... Read More Rating: - From his former Scoutmaster I was David's scoutmaster when he was preparing for his Eagle Scout Board of Review. I was to contact five registered adult Scout leaders, who would comprise the Board. One prospective adult told me he could not sit on the Board, because "something happened". I learned that David and some friends were stopped by the cavaliering Clinton Township (Michigan) Police, who were randomly stopping teens and searching their cars for stolen tires. David was not allowed to keep his ... Read More Rating: - The Atom is Our Friend There's something not quite serious about The Radioactive Boy Scout. The book jacket has a cartoonish design and each page has a little atomic symbol by the page number. It's a small book, almost like a children's reader. It seemed to me as if it would be a quick, fun read. Well, it was quick, all right. Author Ken Silverstein originally wrote this as an article for Harper's Magazine, according to the blurb. The article has been padded with several chapters on nuclear power, chemistry, and the ... Read More Rating: - A great quick red I found this book to be an enjoyable quick read. The science was well explained for those who don't know about nuclear physics and chemistry. There was a good progression of the story with interruptions that you wanted to read to get the background science information on what exactly David was doing. I think everyone should read this book to get a realistic view of how people can have an influence on one life. I will digress a great deal if I start to point out the many life lessons packed into this ... Read More Rating: - Very Interesting Story with Distractions from the Author The *story* is very interesting, but the author repeatedly annoyed me. As others have said, if he had stuck to the story, the book would have been much, much shorter. There was some useful background information about nuclear history and research, but there was also absolutely useless information thrown in as well. [...]. The author was also rather condescending toward David (the boy), his parents, and virtually anyone else who knew him, it seemed. I felt bad for David in particular. The ... Read More see more Browse for similar items by category: Professionals & Academics - Biographies & Memoirs - Subjects - Books - Scientists Experiments, Instruments & Measurement Electron Microscopes & Microscopy Experiments & Projects Measurement

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