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David Hahn
David Charles Hahn (October 30, 1976 – September 27, 2016), sometimes called the "Radioactive Boy Scout" and the "Nuclear Boy Scout" was an American nuclear radiation enthusiast who built a homemade nuclear reactor at the age of seventeen.
A scout in the Boy Scouts of America, Hahn conducted his experiments in secret in a backyard shed at his mother's house in Commerce Township, Michigan. Hahn's goal was to build and demonstrate a homemade breeder reactor. While he never managed to build a reactor, in August 1994, Hahn's progress attracted the attention of local police when they found concerning material in his vehicle during a stop for a separate matter. When Hahn warned them that the material was radioactive, the police contacted federal authorities, worried that he might have an atomic bomb. His mother's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ten months later as a Superfund cleanup site. Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank shortly after his lab was dismantled.
While the incident was not widely publicized initially, it became better known following a 1998 Harper's Magazine article by journalist Ken Silverstein. Hahn was also the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book The Radioactive Boy Scout. As an adult, Hahn served in the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. He was subsequently treated for mental illness, and his death at age 39 was related to drug and alcohol use.
Hahn was born on October 30, 1976, in Royal Oak, Michigan. His father, Ken Hahn, was a mechanical engineer. His mother, Patty Hahn, suffered from alcoholism and was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia and sent to a mental hospital when David was four. His parents divorced when he was nine, and his father gained custody. He had a stepmother, Kathy Missig, and a step-sister Kristina after his father remarried.
David's stepgrandfather John Sims gave him The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and encouraged his experiments in chemistry and science. David mowed other people's lawns to help fund his experiments. With one experiment, he created chloroform and as the book encouraged him to sniff the chemical, he did so and was passed out for more than an hour, according to his recollection. David also loved to build fireworks and model rockets, which he altered with his own designs. As the experiments at home were becoming a problem and increasingly dangerous, David was encouraged by his father to join the Boy Scouts to provide discipline and distraction from his scientific endeavors.
Hahn was fascinated by chemistry and spent years conducting amateur chemistry experiments, which sometimes caused small explosions and other mishaps. He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones. He later received a merit badge in Atomic Energy and became fascinated with the idea of creating a breeder reactor in his home. Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from old clocks he had obtained from an antique store, and tritium from gunsights. His "reactor" was a bored-out block of lead, and he used lithium from $1,000 worth of purchased batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner.
Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissile isotopes.
His homemade neutron source was often incorrectly referred to as a nuclear reactor, but it did emit measurable levels of radiation, likely exceeding 1,000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed by this, David Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but in a chance encounter, police discovered his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response Team involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On June 26, 1995, the EPA, having designated Hahn's mother's property a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and placed its contents in steel barrels, which were later buried as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Unbeknownst to officials, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of the radiation were known, had already collected the majority of the radioactive material David Hahn had hidden in the house and thrown it away in the conventional garbage. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure. EPA scientists believed that Hahn's life expectancy may have been shortened due to his exposure to radioactivity, particularly since he spent long periods in the small, enclosed shed with large amounts of radioactive material and only minimal safety precautions, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station. This was also probably from a fear they would use the results of such an examination to further his trouble.
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David Hahn
David Charles Hahn (October 30, 1976 – September 27, 2016), sometimes called the "Radioactive Boy Scout" and the "Nuclear Boy Scout" was an American nuclear radiation enthusiast who built a homemade nuclear reactor at the age of seventeen.
A scout in the Boy Scouts of America, Hahn conducted his experiments in secret in a backyard shed at his mother's house in Commerce Township, Michigan. Hahn's goal was to build and demonstrate a homemade breeder reactor. While he never managed to build a reactor, in August 1994, Hahn's progress attracted the attention of local police when they found concerning material in his vehicle during a stop for a separate matter. When Hahn warned them that the material was radioactive, the police contacted federal authorities, worried that he might have an atomic bomb. His mother's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ten months later as a Superfund cleanup site. Hahn attained Eagle Scout rank shortly after his lab was dismantled.
While the incident was not widely publicized initially, it became better known following a 1998 Harper's Magazine article by journalist Ken Silverstein. Hahn was also the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book The Radioactive Boy Scout. As an adult, Hahn served in the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps. He was subsequently treated for mental illness, and his death at age 39 was related to drug and alcohol use.
Hahn was born on October 30, 1976, in Royal Oak, Michigan. His father, Ken Hahn, was a mechanical engineer. His mother, Patty Hahn, suffered from alcoholism and was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia and sent to a mental hospital when David was four. His parents divorced when he was nine, and his father gained custody. He had a stepmother, Kathy Missig, and a step-sister Kristina after his father remarried.
David's stepgrandfather John Sims gave him The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and encouraged his experiments in chemistry and science. David mowed other people's lawns to help fund his experiments. With one experiment, he created chloroform and as the book encouraged him to sniff the chemical, he did so and was passed out for more than an hour, according to his recollection. David also loved to build fireworks and model rockets, which he altered with his own designs. As the experiments at home were becoming a problem and increasingly dangerous, David was encouraged by his father to join the Boy Scouts to provide discipline and distraction from his scientific endeavors.
Hahn was fascinated by chemistry and spent years conducting amateur chemistry experiments, which sometimes caused small explosions and other mishaps. He was inspired in part by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones. He later received a merit badge in Atomic Energy and became fascinated with the idea of creating a breeder reactor in his home. Hahn diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household products, such as americium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lantern mantles, radium from old clocks he had obtained from an antique store, and tritium from gunsights. His "reactor" was a bored-out block of lead, and he used lithium from $1,000 worth of purchased batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner.
Hahn ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor, using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissile isotopes.
His homemade neutron source was often incorrectly referred to as a nuclear reactor, but it did emit measurable levels of radiation, likely exceeding 1,000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed by this, David Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but in a chance encounter, police discovered his activities, which triggered a Federal Radiological Emergency Response Team involving the FBI and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. On June 26, 1995, the EPA, having designated Hahn's mother's property a Superfund hazardous materials cleanup site, dismantled the shed and placed its contents in steel barrels, which were later buried as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Unbeknownst to officials, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of the radiation were known, had already collected the majority of the radioactive material David Hahn had hidden in the house and thrown it away in the conventional garbage. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure. EPA scientists believed that Hahn's life expectancy may have been shortened due to his exposure to radioactivity, particularly since he spent long periods in the small, enclosed shed with large amounts of radioactive material and only minimal safety precautions, but he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station. This was also probably from a fear they would use the results of such an examination to further his trouble.