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Villard, 2004-01-01. Paperback. Very Good. 0.5118 7.8346 5.1969.
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The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor Paperback - 2005
by Ken Silverstein
In this page-turning biography, Silverstein explores one Boy Scout's out-of-control love affair with science and his astonishing attempt to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard. High school & older.
Summary
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and gas lanterns--both of which contain small amounts of radioactive material--and following blueprints he found in an outdated physics textbook, David cobbled together a crude device that threw off toxic levels of radiation.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.From the Hardcover edition.
From the publisher
First line
David Hahn's earliest memory seems appropriate in light of later events; it is of conducting an experiment in the bathroom when he was perhaps four years old.
From the jacket flap
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.
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.
Details
- Title The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor
- Author Ken Silverstein
- Binding Paperback
- Edition Reprint
- Pages 240
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Villard Books, Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A.
- Date 2005-01-11
- Features Bibliography
- ISBN 9780812966602 / 0812966600
- Weight 0.4 lbs (0.18 kg)
- Dimensions 7.84 x 5.68 x 0.57 in (19.91 x 14.43 x 1.45 cm)
- Reading level 1300
- Library of Congress subjects Problem youth - United States, Breeder reactors
- Dewey Decimal Code B
Excerpt
Media reviews
Citations
- Kliatt, 05/01/2005, Page 46
About the author
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