HN Gopher Feed (2017-10-13) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
The Radioactive Boy Scout (1999)
28 points by napolux
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html?resub___________________________________________________________________
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anfractuosity - 2 hours ago
There's also an interesting documentary with Hahn going through
some of the methods he used, called 'The Nuclear Boy Scout'.
themodelplumber - 1 hours ago
Wow, interesting is kind of an understatement. I found it a bit
disturbing. The guy is still basically asking for
it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Uuex4VZPEEdit: Looks like he
died in 2016 of alcohol poisoning. :(
mlaretallack - 1 hours ago
Just read the Wikipedia entry."Hahn died on Tuesday, September
27, 2016, at the age of 39. At the time, he was a resident of
Shelby Charter Township, Michigan.[1][14]Hahn's father has
since confirmed that the cause of death was alcohol
poisoning.[15]"It could of been so much different...
skate22 - 50 minutes ago
A real life Rick
leggomylibro - 2 hours ago
Heh, this story is always interesting when it comes up. The
Harper's article is well-written, too. It just boggles the mind
that this kid actually made a frickin' unshielded nuclear reactor
core. He actually did it, the absolute madman.I like how the police
brought him in as a kid for having a nuclear device, he made a
superfund site out of the whole deal, and he still grew up to work
aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier. The Navy must have known, right?
I wonder what those conversations must have been like.Also, I am
super not surprised that Wikipedia says, "He was inspired in part
by reading The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments." That book is
just goatshit insane; the '60s were clearly a silly time, because
the 'also by this author' section includes The Golden Book of Wild
Animal Pets. Which, uh...I don't know. I got nothing.Anyways, it's
public domain, but before you hand it to a young child be warned
that it includes phrases like, "making Hydrogen in the lab," and
"have a bottle of household ammonia to sniff if you get too strong
a whiff of Chlorine."
Yikes.https://archive.org/details/GoldenBookOfChemistryExperiments
a_t48 - 1 hours ago
Comeon, making Hydrogen isn't that crazy, you just hook up a 9V
battery to a glass of water.Edit: skimmed the book. They first
make Hydrogen through electrolysis (cool!). Then they make it
from hydro-chloric acid (cool! also dangerous!).
leggomylibro - 1 hours ago
Yeah, but most books don't go into detail for separating the
resulting hydrogen and oxygen, testing for hydrogen by burning
it, or observing the difference in using hydrogen and oxygen to
burn things.Sure, it's easy to observe, but be careful...I do
really like the book's can-do attitude, though.
a_t48 - 1 hours ago
Yeah, especially as it says your lab can be in your bedroom
or basement. Generating larger amounts of flammable gas
indoors and burning it is less sane.
CaliforniaKarl - 2 hours ago
Link to the original article, which is still online:
https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scou...So
this should probably be marked (1998)And looks like the article was
discussed five (!!) years ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=611583And then Ars brought it
up a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12957768
astrodust - 2 hours ago
The half-life on this story is pretty long.
schneems - 7 minutes ago
He's dead now :(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_HahnAnother
related good read is "The Boy Who Played with Fusion: Extreme
Science, Extreme Parenting, and How to Make a Star".
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