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The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor

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Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Adult/High School-After his grandfather gave him a used copy of The Golden Book of Chemistry, David Hahn became obsessed with science and conducting his own experiments. As an Eagle Scout, he began work on the Atomic Energy badge by making a model of a nuclear reactor. Not satisfied with that, he set out to build a real one. He read voraciously and scavenged for materials, finding some of the items he needed in gas-lantern mantels and smoke detectors. By posing as a professor, he used the Nuclear Regulatory Agency to get much of the information that he needed. And in the summer after his junior year in high school, he nearly succeeded in building a reactor in the potting shed behind his house. He created a site so hazardous that it became an EPA's Superfund site. Silverstein writes in a light, easy-to-read style even as he explains the atomic theory behind Hahn's experiments. He sees the young man's dysfunctional family and his teachers' lack of time or interest in finding out more about "Glow Boy's" pursuits as the framework for Hahn's misguided conduct. Readers will have plenty to think about and discuss after reading this amazing tale of an adolescent loner's single-minded pursuit of a dangerous goal.-Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Woodbridge, VA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Ken Silverstein

Ken Silverstein is the author of Turkmeniscam and The Radioactive Boy Scout. The Washington editor of Harper's magazine, he is a former investigative reporter for the Washington, D.C., bureau of the Los Angeles Times. Silverstein has also written for Mother Jones, The Nation, and The American Prospect, among other publications. He lives in Washington.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Random House

Filesize

421.15 KB

Number of Pages

240

eBook ISBN

9781588363565

Awards

  • Garden State Teen Book Award
  • Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Award

Excerpt from: The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein

Chapter 1

Roots: The Making of a Teenage Scientist

You--Scientist!
--The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments, 1960

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. With his father at work and his unmindful mother listening to music in the living room of the family's small apartment in suburban Detroit, he rummaged through the medicine chest and undersink cabinet and gathered toothpaste, soap, medicines, cold cream, nail polish remover, and rubbing alcohol. He mixed everything in a metal bowl and stirred in the contents of an ashtray used by his mother, a chain-smoker. "I was trying to get a magical reaction, to create something new," he remembered later. "I thought that the more things I threw in, the stronger the reaction I'd get."

After he finished blending the ingredients together, young David was disappointed to see that all he had in the bowl was a lifeless, grayish glob. Hence, he went back to the cabinet beneath the sink and pulled out a bright-blue bottle, which years later he realized was probably a drain-cleaning product. He uncapped the bottle and poured a healthy amount into the bowl; soon, the mixture began to bubble and threatened to boil over. In a panic, David flushed the contents of the bowl down the toilet. His parents never knew what happened, and David promised himself that he would never again try something so foolish. It was the first of many similar vows made over the years, all broken in short order. It also established a pattern: experiment, trouble, cover-up.

If David was a slightly odd child, his parents, lost in their own preoccupations, hardly noticed. His father, Ken Hahn, grew up in the Detroit area along with his four brothers and sisters. Ken's father was a skilled tradesman, a tool-and-die maker who worked for General Electric and Pratt & Whitney. At night, Ken would sit with his dad and pore over blueprints of the tools his dad made during his workday. By the time he reached Henry Ford High School, Ken had decided to pursue a similar career, though he was fascinated by the idea of drawing the blueprints, not building the tools. He enrolled in a college-prep program for mechanical engineering and after graduating attended Lawrence Technological University, a local school.