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Duct Tape
CandyMan writes: "The incredible story of the 15-year-old kid who built a nuclear reactor in his mother's toolshed, using common household objects, aluminium foil and duct tape. Sample quote: 'When David's Geiger counter began picking up radiation five doors from his mom's house, he decided that he had "too much radioactive stuff in one place", and began to dissasemble the reactor'." Well, I tried to check this out and see if it was for real, and I found a much longer version of the same article which appears legit, if still rather unbelievable. If any of you irradiate yourselves, you didn't read about it here, okay?
I went to high school with him, and was in the same scout troop as him (Troop 371).
We were in the same circle of (sometimes self proclaimed) weirdos who were all obsessive about one thing or another, and hung out together.
I remember when he brought in a giger counter, and we checked the food in the east center caf to see if it was radioactive. We had a good laugh when we got a blip from the soft serve ice cream.
Later, when he started carrying around radioactive material in his pockets at school, and showing me what looked like radiation burns, I tried to not hang out with him as much, and switched seats in Anthropology so that I wasn't right next to him.
It was a weird time - I was at MSU when I got the paniced call from him saying that the EPA was currently raiding his house, and wanting to know what catalog he had ordered the smoke detectors from.
The author who did the Harper's article was working on a book late last year - he asked me a few questions about Dave. I wonder when it will come out...
If anyone has any questions about Dave, just reply to this, and I'll answer what I remember...
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Maybe you also don't worry about having genital cancer later in your life either ? I don't know...but I think there just MIGHT be slightly safer methods of population control. Then again....I guess if that sounds like a good idea to you...go ahead. Survival of the fittest, I suppose ;)
While David may have attempted to build a breeder reactor, he certainly didn't succeed. Even if you don't get past the first page of the article you'll notice a synopsis: "When a teenager attempts to build a breeder reactor."
What really tells are his own words:
"Even though there was no critical pile, I know that some of the reactions that go on in a breeder reactor went on to a minute extent."(page 11 of the Harper's article)
And he was talking about a device he built like this:
"David took the highly radioactive radium and americium out of their respective lead casings and, after another round of filing and pulverizing, mixed those isotopes with beryllium and aluminum shavings, all of which he wrapped in aluminum foil. What were once the neutron sources for his guns became a makeshift "core" for his reactor. He surrounded this radioactive ball with a "blanket" composed of tiny foil-wrapped cubes of thorium ash and uranium powder, which were stacked in an alternating pattern with carbon cubes and tenuously held together with duct tape."
This doesn't approach "building a nuclear reactor" by a long shot.
One of the people mentioned in the story is David Minnaar, who works for the Michigan DEP. He's certainly a real person; see Antique crock turns out to be radioactive and Michigan DEP site with his e-mail address (minnaard@state.mi.us) and phone number (517-335-8197).
Another person mentioned is Donald Erb, mentioned on International Isotope Society Membership List, and can be reached at
U.S. Department of Energy
22404 Goshen School Road
Gaithersburg , MD , 20882-9801
Phone: (301) 253-5530
Fax: (301) 903-5434
So at the minimum they're real people, and can certainly easily confirm or deny the story or its details, unless they refuse to talk about it, which would be a bit silly.
There was a long cross-posted thread in alt.folklore.urban, sci.physics, and sci.skeptic at the beginning of last year about this, Some good posts:
- the young Mr. Hahn did not build a nuclear breeder reactor...
- one about his Geiger counter readings: More likely, he was measuring stuff on his clothes, or perhaps his body...
- Actually, I'm not AT ALL impressed with the young Mr. Hahn's "accomplishments"...
The existence of David Hahn is plausible; that he accomplished anything resembling a nuclear reactor isn't. It takes a lot of math and physics to build a safe nuclear reactor, but it only takes a pile of radioactive material to get radioactive readings. As extracting elements is pretty much the most basic task in chemistry, and it's all the guy had to do, I believe that he could have done it. Calling what he made a nuclear breeder reactor is pure journalistic hoo-hah (or more charitably, gross exaggeration)...actually, the journalist merely implies that's what Hahn did, by using the phrase "breeder reactor" over and over again. A good lesson in the difference between what's actually said and what's implied. He may have had a dangerous nuclear pile, but that's far from a genuine reactor.Remember, this is 19th century chemistry that he was doing, and had the advantage of extracting radioactive materials from already purified sources.
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Make mine methylphenidate.
Sorry for the confusion, LionKimbro. I really should have been more specific. I should have said "lifetime allowable dosage of radiation for a person working in a US Navy nuclear specialty." I'm sure there's a "government recommended maximum civillian dosage," and it's set at a very harmless and generally un-reached number.
Here's a little background on the Navy nuclear field:
The enlisted and officer personnel that actually work on the naval reactor systems (ratings of MM, EM and ET, plus officer billets) go through a special school at Naval Weapons Station Charleston in South Carolina.
As far as exposure goes, I'm not going to get into the exact specifics & numbers. (I'm not sure exactly where 'common knowledge' stops and 'confidential information' starts.) Numbers don't matter in any case, as I don't have exposure readings for Petty Officer Hahn.
The point is: The Navy has chosen a number for the amount of exposure you're allowed. David Hahn exceeded this number before he enlisted. Therefore the Navy will not allow him to work in a situation where he will receive artificial additional exposure. The Navy is not interested in medically retiring him and handing him a disability check because something turned cancerous, all because he went near a reactor... again.
The Navy does understand the risks involved -- and they certainly minimize their exposure as much as they can, both to radiation risks and litigation risks!
Petty Officer Hahn is quite famous here around NWS Charleston. Every Power School class hears about the 'Radioactive Boyscout.' Curious about what he's doing now? He's an 'airdale' -- he works on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.
"...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Oops.
So, just you remember that kids -- choices you make in your youth can limit your career options further down the road.
I sure think he didn't want quite that result, though.
His reaction to it is interesting. (To paraphrase Reader's Digest):
- David is now in the Navy, where he reads about steroids, melanin, genetic codes, prototype reactors, amino acids, and criminal law. He explains "...I wanted to make a scratch in life." As far as his radiation exposure, "I've still got time." He goes on to venture that "I don't believe I took more than 5 years off my life."
Quite the merit badge."...America's great minds of today, teaching America's great minds of tomorrow. Poor bastards." -- A Beautiful Min
Half way down the page it says this story appeared in:
November 1998 issue of Harpers Magazine.
CBS "Morning News"
CBS "Evening News" on October 14, 1998
Reader's Digest March 1999
The Sunday Times January 17, 1999.
I looked in the Sunday times back-issue and couldn't find the article, maybe someone else can....
http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/cgi-bin/BackIssue
CBC news archives seem to not go back farther than Dec 98.
Yes, once you've built your own atomic device, we at ACME Atomic Products promise no more being picked on!
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Yup. Also used on watch faces. The most expensive commercially available substance in the world. Last time I bothered checking, it was 10 grand American per gram. That was 10 or 15 years ago.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
...does anyone else find it just slightly strange that his name is DAVID HAHN!??
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
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fat lenny's gonna lick your brain today.
This seems to be fiction invented by a writer who is well-educated in nuclear physics, and who is depending on the fact that his readers aren't.
For example, this paragraph from the story cannot be right:
"It was slow going until one day, driving through Clinton Township to visit his girlfriend, Heather, he noticed that his Geiger counter went wild as he passed Gloria's Resale Boutique/Antique. The proprietor, Gloria Genette, still recalls the day when she was called at home by a store employee who said that a polite young man was anxious to buy an old table clock with a tinted green dial but wondered if she'd come down in price."
This doesn't make sense. Geiger counters are not very sensitive because they depend on the ability of an energetic particle or photon to ionize gas molecules. This takes a lot of energy.
To detect the radiation on the street using a geiger counter, the radiation near where the source was stored would have to be so intense that the workers in the store would become sick.
Read message #173 above, by Kierthos (Kierthos@aol.com):
"And as I recall, the radioactive particles emitted by Uranium are alpha (okay, it's been a long time, so I'm guessing), which can be stopped by a stout pair of pants."
That's true. Beta radiation (fast electrons) doesn't travel far either. Another kind of radiation emitted by radioactive substances is gamma rays. Gamma rays are photons more energetic than X-rays. Gamma rays can penetrate easily. However, consider that the article quote implies that the distance over which the radiation was detected was from inside the store to the street. I'm guessing that would be at least 6 meters, or 20 feet.
Gamma radiation from a radioactive substance is omni-directional. The energy radiates the same way in all directions. As radiation spreads into a volume, its intensity is divided proportional to the square of the distance. This means that someone working in the store would be exposed to a far higher intensity of radiation than would be detectable in the street.
Also, the amount of radium (radioactive material) in luminous clock dials was extremely small. Radium was, and is, extremely expensive, so there never would have been very much in one place. Radium-226, the most common isotope, decays to half its original intensity in 1600 years. So there would never have been a reason to include an extra sample of radium with a clock.
Conclusion: This story is, at least partly, a hoax.
Bush's education improvements were
There is no way that the radioactive materiasl that this student put together could ever have created a sustained nuclear reaction. I read this article very carefully when it came out, and came to the conclusion that a gullible reporter was taken in. Sure, one can obtain some moderately radioactive materials, but that is one hellofa long way from fission. Don't believe everything you read. See http://www.umsl.edu/~chemist/books/halspicks/hal19 98.html#October
While you can't do everything on a budget, you generally don't need a lot of equipment in order to do science, even cutting edge science. Policymakers should remember that when they consider trying to restrict the availability of technology or bet that it won't proliferate. You may be able to track and restrict nuclear materials, with occasional problems, but you can't restrict biotech or computers.
The situation is really not unlike software. You may have big companies going out and spending billions on "enterprise software", while nimble smaller players do a better job with open source.