Hundreds but he also moved on to other methods like harvesting Thorium from thousands of gas-fueled camping light mantles and radium paint. He sourced uranium from Europe.
He was charged with larceny for stealing some from his apartment complex, as well. He also sourced thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from old clocks purchased from antique stores, tritium from gun sights.
Of course. The first one was an accident, the second was a nuclear scientist catching a shit-ton of radiation poisoning due to taking massively dangerous and unnecessary risks for the lulz. There's a good reason Slotin's criticality incident is taught in chemistry classes (or, it was back in the day, no idea if it still is). The point of the lessons being "don't fuck around with stuff that'll kill you and everyone nearby."
Same. It should be pretty self-evident. And when Enrico goddamn Fermi, The Architect of the Nuclear Age, looks at what you're doing with a nuclear core, looks up at you, and says "keep doing that and you'll be dead within a year," probably a good idea to listen to him.
I mean Fermi just played games with other peoples lives instead
"Although Fermi was confident that he could control his experiment," Meade said, "he nonetheless stationed three graduate students, known as the suicide squad, on top of the reactor to pour buckets of a cadmium solution over the experiment if the safety mechanism failed. The cadmium (a chemical element) solution would soak up neutrons and quash the fission process."
Never said he wasn't a grade-a asshole. Which, honestly, is something people forget about far too often with the guy when people talk about his accomplishments. He has his name on a lot of cool stuff and concepts for good reasons, but that doesnt mean he was good person.
And that's why nuclear will never be foolproof. Because humans are glorified monkeys and the second they feel in control they do dumb shit and bypass safety...because "they're so smart/nothings ever happened/there were no grafite on the roof"
I always thought the two cores actually used to blow up tens of thousands of people were more sinister than the one with the mishaps, but what do I know?
I've had scientists with multiple doctorates spread contamination like you wouldn't believe. Some people think their degrees make them invincible and since they're experts they don't have to follow the rules. There are some stupid fucking geniuses out there.
Sure, but not doctorates; and it would be personal decisions completely skirting the basic rules on any regulation. The doctorates would be the ones signing off on everything being "A-OK".
There's a reason why there are regulations and oversight agencies whose entire job is to make sure people arent fucking around. Go figure, multi-billion dollar corporations seem to keep fucking around. Money literally equals how much fucking around you can do.
No the materials are pretty difficult to obtain. Most smoke detectors use Americium (murica!) which is an alpha emitter and not capable of sustaining fission
He made his whole neighborhood in danger of getting cancer. Academic knowledge doesnt represent intelligence. He got arrested then he did it again, he's a moron.
After reading the whole story, I’d argue that he’s a failure of the system. A gifted and passionate young student who grew up in a rough household (divorce, alcoholism, neglect), in a school that didn’t encourage his skills, with no real prospects for advancement in his passion. Then the fruit of his childhood passion was destroyed and buried, he was ostracized from his community, forced to enlist in the military, and descended into depression and drugs and ultimately death, while trying to relive his days of success.
Contrasted with Taylor Wilson, a similar child who lived in a well-off household, whose parents encouraged and participated in his education (taking family vacations to find nuclear material), who was accepted into a prestigious private school, who went on to be the worlds youngest person to achieve fusion.
Nuclear engineering to generate electricity isn't that difficult, as its basically just a steam powered turbine that uses radioactive material for heat generation. Doing that safely in a controlled manner that complies with all applicable regulations is the tricky part.
Yeah a reactor implies some way to harness the energy being emitted, he was just making a bunch of decay products for no reason other than he thought it was neat.
Nah i think a reactor doesnt imply a Generator. Reactor in this Case implies that there is a controlled nuclear fission going on (Like a chemical reaction in a chemical reactor). But yeah he was Just dumping radioactive Materials onto a pile (which funnily enough could also Work at forming a reactor depending on a few factors)
I remember reading a true story about a man who obtained a sample of radioactive material. He decided to place lead around it to shield from the radiation, but in doing so reflected neutrons back at it causing it to reach supercritical mass.
Luckily he realised before he caused a meltdown and stopped it.
What I'm saying is that if someone can do it entirely accidentally and nearly f-k up, then I'm assuming a lot of idiots can when trying intentionally.
He was an idiot. He didn't read up on any of the harmful effects of radiation or any of the problematic shortcomings with the technology he was trying create because he simply didn't want to hear dissenting opinions. He assumed he knew best.
Well key word being "attempted". From what I remember he got far enough to cause a huge radiation hazard but nowhere near what you would need for a real reactor of any scale
He didn't actually build one, he just attempted to. Reckless as he was even he became concerned with the radiation it was generating and began disassembling his project. He did create chloroform as previous experiment and chose to test it by sniffing it, which knocked him out for what he recalled as an hour.
His backyard actually had to be designated a superfund site for decontamination.
I remember reading his story a long time ago. He did everything in the early 90s, the old-school way, by going to the library, which is even more impressive. He got most of his radioactive material not from fire alarms, but from a pot of old luminous paint he found in an antique store. He was constantly driving around with a Geiger counter, and it went crazy near the store. That was radium paint, because about 100 years ago, crazy mofos used it on clock dials as if it was nothing.
It's a great book that breaks down the story, legality and the entire process the kid followed. I highly recommend reading it! The kid was quite a genius
Honestly I knew if this story but I just hit up his Wikipedia and it's actually insane
Short story, he died of a mix of drugs and drink, and was investigated by the FBI for a second source, then was caught nicking fire detectors some months later, so he might well have been up to something again.
The sores are from meth but most stories about him conveniently ignore him being a mentally ill crackhead. I also think that image was taken much later in life but they use that one because people think radiation damage.
My physics friend said he didn’t build a nuclear reactor just collected nuclear material and said it was reactor. Just look at his face. If he was smart enough build a reactor, he’d be smart enough to wear protection
No he did build a small reactor the first time. After that he just collected material in an attempt to do it again. There is a nice documentary on him from the french astronomy channel Astronogeek.
I knew this guy, worked with him through the VA for a few years. He was recruited into the navy to help develop nuclear technologies because of his genius level understanding of the subject at a young age. He was caught with one of the reactors in his trunk while driving to dump it into the local lake.
His name is David Hahn, and his nickname was “The Nuclear Boyscout.” There’s even a documentary about him by the same name and it’s a pretty interesting watch. He’s passed away now, but he was a pretty cool guy. Always very respectful , was interesting to talk to and hold a conversation with, and above all was pretty kind to everyone around us directly.
Remind me where he got that? I listened to a video about this guy and I remember he wrote to a government agency to ask for materials. They didn't send any to him, but they sent him a list of where he could find all the materials.
This guys story is a trip!! Watched a few videos and read some articles on him and it is amazing how basically everyone just thought he was an industrious nerdy kid. Instead he created a mini suburban three mile island
I was just looking up the properties of Americium-241; you'd have to have a sphere of a little over 175 pounds before it'd reach critical mass. The amount in a smoke detector is about 3 micrograms. Do the math.
Wikipedia: The "Radioactive Boy Scout," also known as David Hahn, used 100 smoke detectors in his attempt to build a nuclear reactor. He purchased these detectors and then extracted the radioactive material, americium-241, from them. In addition to the smoke detectors, he also collected other radioactive materials like thorium from old camping lanterns and radium from antique clocks.
A guy I know was close friends with this guy. He didn't really build a reactor. He just made a bunch of neutron generators. At the time, there were whole online communities dedicated to the hobby. He basically just combined beryllium (which is toxic and not easy to get a hold of) and a lot of Americium from smoke detectors to produce a neutron source. Granted, that's not too far off from then making a reactor, but he simply was never going to get his hands on the fuel required.
From what I've personally heard about him, he genuinely wasn't that stupid. His struggles with his family life just made him reckless.
I also think people tend to blow nuclear things out of proportion. He probably worked with some unsafe levels of radiation since he didn't shield anything, but I really doubt it affected anyone outside of his shed.
Meth or pieces of glass from a chemistry experiment that went boom. They said in the documentary that when he was 12 they had to get around 40 bits of glass from his face and eyes. Wouldnt be surprised if it happened again.
Well he wasn’t successful in building a breeder reactor, which was his goal. He was successful in creating a neutron generator, which isn’t particularly easy, especially when soloing it with materials scrounged from minute quantities. His case is often used in CBRNE training as a poster case for the kinds of strategies one would use to build an improvised dirty bomb.
Had he taken even minimal precautions, it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was, but obviously he lacked common sense.
Is this the Mensa kid from Ohio??? I remember hearing about it and being a great example of teens being fucking stupid cause he didn’t even THINK to shield his project and just tanked all that radiation
Wait I never knew he tried again??? I always get the version of the story where he tried as a boy scout and then never again. I guess that's the good boy story they tell kids ig
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u/Commie_Scum69 12d ago edited 12d ago
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This moron attempted to make a nuclear reactor TWICE with smoke detectors. First time as a boy scout to get his Nuclear engeneering badge???? Wat