David Hahn
| David Charles Hahn | |
|---|---|
| Born |
October 30, 1976 Clinton Township, Michigan, United States |
| Died | September 27, 2016 (aged 39) Shelby Charter Township, Michigan, United States |
| Known for | Attempting to build a nuclear reactor in his backyard at the age of 17 |
David Charles Hahn (October 30, 1976 – September 27, 2016), sometimes called the Radioactive Boy Scout or the Nuclear Boy Scout, was an American who in 1994, at age 17, attempted to build a homemade breeder reactor. 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. While his reactor never reached critical mass, Hahn attracted the attention of local police when he was stopped on another matter and they found material in his vehicle that troubled them, and he warned that it was radioactive. His mother's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency 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 article by journalist Ken Silverstein. Hahn was also the subject of Silverstein's 2004 book, The Radioactive Boy Scout.
Hahn was a Boy Scout 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 clocks, and tritium (a neutron moderator) 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.
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