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Reminds me of David Hahn, a kid who tried to make a breeder reactor in a garden shed. He massed Americium from smoke detectors in an attempt to make Plutonium.
by mmmBacon 10y ago
Reminds me of David Hahn, a kid who tried to make a breeder reactor in a garden shed. He massed Americium from smoke detectors in an attempt to make Plutonium.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
- InclinedPlane 10y agoYeah, crazy stuff. Shows what's possible if you have no boundaries. He collected old glow in the dark paint and extracted the radium from it then used beryllium foil to make a neutron source that he used to irradiate thorium from kerosene lamps, producing U-233. Very tiny amounts, but remarkable nonetheless.
- seesomesense 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn#Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn#Death
- petee 10y agoProbably important to highlight that he was 39 when he died... I always admired his passion, but puzzled at his stubborn lack of safety precautions.
- ethbro 10y agoProbably a good lesson for us all: anything can be learned on your own, but learning on your own is not guaranteed to highlight what you don't know and need to.
- frozenport 10y agoIf I recall, the cause of death was "unatural" and years of mental health problems hint that he didn't die of radiation related diseases.
- petee 10y agoThats what I had recalled, until I found his mugshot when he was arrested stealing smoke detectors - his face was covered in lesions attributed to radiation. Pretty sad. If it wasn't the immediate cause, it likely wasn't unrelated either.
- c0nsumer 10y agoI was unaware that he died. :\ He's sort of a local legedend here in SE Michigan. I wish I'd known about his funeral, the funeral home is a few hundred feet from my house.