Anyone ever write an essay about what you did on your summer vacation in high school? If so, imagine the look on the teacher’s face upon learning that you built your own nuclear reactor out of common household materials, earned your Atomic Energy Merit Badge, and the FBI and NRC confiscated it and declared your house a Superfund site. Sounds like a Doctor Demento skit, right?
Mr. Wizard and Timmy by Stevens & Grdnic
(narrator) Hello boys and girls, and future scientists! It’s time once
again for – Mr. Wizard! And his little friend – Timmy!(Timmy) Hello Mr. Wizard!
(Mr. Wizard) Well hello Timmy. Today Timmy, we’re gonna take an old spatula, an inner tube, and some macaroni noodles, to make a nuclear reactor.
(Timmy) ‘k Mr. Wizard! Aren’t nuclear reactors dangerous?
(Mr. Wizard) No, Timmy! But old spatulas are! They can poke your little eyes out. So I’ll have to ask you to wear these goggles.
Jump to hear about the scout who earned a merit badge for his homemade reactor…
Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from (occasionally stolen) household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from clocks and tritium (as neutron moderator) from gunsights. His “reactor” was a large, cored-out block of lead, and he used $1000 worth of lithium from batteries to purify the thorium ash using a bunsen burner.
Gotta admire the diligent lad, and the awesome power of science.
The kid was quite enterprising; he earned the merit badge before he ever attempted construction on the reactor. Apparently, that was just enough to whet his appetite.
Hahn, nicknamed the “Radioactive Boy Scout”, is an Eagle Scout who had previously earned a merit badge in Atomic Energy and had spent years tinkering with basement chemistry which included small explosions.
I’m surprised I didn’t hear of this kid earlier in my life. Why do the Boy Scouts of America hate America?
To continue from Wikipedia:
Although his home-made reactor never achieved criticality, it ended up emitting toxic levels of radioactivity, around 1000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed, Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but a chance encounter with police led to the discovery of his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
I used to hate it when that happened. Mom and Dad, fortunately, made it through my slightly wilder years, so I suspect that this kid’s future wasn’t too dark.
…oops:
The Environmental Protection Agency, having designated Hahn’s mother’s property as a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and its contents and buried them as low-level radioactive waste in Utah.
OK – so, Mom probably wouldn’t have been too happy with me if I’d gone that far. And I suspect that the folks in Utah aren’t too happy about it, either (Hahn and his mother lived in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan).
After such an interesting early escapade with the US Government, Hahn enlisted in the navy:
Hahn had hoped to pursue a nuclear specialist career, but was not even permitted to tour the reactors
That must’ve stung. When his stint was up, he left the navy – and reenlisted as a Marine.
At this point, I can’t help thinking of Dr. Seuss’s book “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” and wondering if this guy could’ve benefited from it.
Harper’s magazine apparently printed an article about it in 1998, and the author expanded it into a full-book biography in 2004, but go read the Wiki link above; I love the scavenger hunt reference.
In the meantime, we should ask ourselves whether or not DHS already has a full plate, and if any further investigation into the wayward influence of the Boy Scouts of America and their insidious Atomic Energy merit badge is warranted.
If you have seen or heard of any suspicious Eagle Scout activity in your neighborhood, you are urged to contact your local DHS branch office and report it immediately. Cite the Amazon link above or the Wiki quote above that, and tell Bill O’Really O’Reilly that you want him to do a hard-hitting exposé on this subversive group immediately. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the American thing to do.
The above italicized text is only snark. Do not take it seriously and do not bug the DHS or Bill “O” or Fox News will be sent to your home to hound you. Just ask Mike Stark — he knows the horrors of such dire threats. (Although, come to think of it, Fox News Security never did show up…)
(1)Mr. Wizard was played by Don Herbert. I don’t know if the attribute to Stevens & Grdnic is accurate as the original source of the “Mr. Wizard and Timmy” show; if you know for certain, or have corrected attribution info, please post in comments.