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34 reviews for:
The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor
Ken Silverstein
3.45 AVERAGE
34 reviews for:
The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor
Ken Silverstein
3.45 AVERAGE
Thought it was a really neat read.Can be hard going but this dude went to an extraordinary lengths to passes all his boys scout awards.
fast-paced
informative
slow-paced
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Alcoholism, Death of parent
medium-paced
During the mid-90s, David Hahn was a teenager obsessed with nuclear physics. In a bid to earn his Eagle Scout rank, he designed and (almost successfully) built a breeder reactor in his family shed. While he did earn Eagle, he also was busted by local and federal authorities who shut down his home-made reactor. Instead of fostering his talents, his family and community continued to shun him. He dropped out of community college, was discharged from the US Navy, and eventually was arrested and investigated by the FBI for stealing materials to build another reactor. He died in 2016 of substance abuse.
This is a sad story about a squandered talent, but the journalism is somewhat lackluster. I would still recommend reading it or listening to the audiobook to know the story, though.
This is a sad story about a squandered talent, but the journalism is somewhat lackluster. I would still recommend reading it or listening to the audiobook to know the story, though.
This was an interesting history of nuclear energy and of the character who became known as "the radioactive boy scout." I have 2 complaints with the book. First, David Hahn (the radioactive boy scout,) annoyed me to no end. He has the strength of being very determined to accomplish his task of building a nuclear reactor, but he fails in every other aspect of life. He is a lying, cheating, thieving, lazy, dangerous individual who has convinced himself that he is better than everyone around him. He is not representative of what a boy scout should be, and really the boy scout thing was just a cover up so that he would have an excuse to do whatever he wanted. The second issue I have with the book is that the author has a definite axe to grind. It is very clear throughout this book that the author is opposed to nuclear energy and boy scouts, so I'm not sure why he chose this topic to write about. When I was able to overlook the authors politics, and the subjects idiocy, I actually did enjoy reading the book.
I've had this book on my list for years. It's interesting and I enjoyed it, but I'd really like more follow up information regarding "Where is he now?"
We've recently started a program for gifted and talented in our school district, and this book really highlights the difference between ""gifted,"" which is significant above average general intelligence, and ""talented,"" which is a significant strength in a specific area. Here, David has a talent for science and chemisistry. This talent is basically ignored and unrecognized because he is mediocre in school and writes poorly. No one could believe that he was doing the things he discussed. They didn't recognize and therefore didn't guide his talent.
I hope David does well and has a happy future. And, I hope that he can contribute to our world in the way he dreamed and performed as a teenager.
We've recently started a program for gifted and talented in our school district, and this book really highlights the difference between ""gifted,"" which is significant above average general intelligence, and ""talented,"" which is a significant strength in a specific area. Here, David has a talent for science and chemisistry. This talent is basically ignored and unrecognized because he is mediocre in school and writes poorly. No one could believe that he was doing the things he discussed. They didn't recognize and therefore didn't guide his talent.
I hope David does well and has a happy future. And, I hope that he can contribute to our world in the way he dreamed and performed as a teenager.
This is the interesting story of a young man who tried to build his own breeder reactor in the shed behind his mother's house.
His ambition was rewarded with his mom's shed becoming a Superfund site.
Author Ken Silverstein tells this surprising tale with brevity and wit, but one gets the sense that he needed to up his page count and did so with detours into the history of nuclear power and the Boy Scouts of America. Further, Silverstein puts his antinuclear orientation front and center. I'm not sure that I needed either the detours or the ideology, but I was interested and entertained by the story of a very bright teenager trying to do something that no adults in his life believed remotely within the scope of his talents or abilities. Thing is, he got a lot closer to success than anyone would have thought.
Thus, this book is an interesting combination of can-do Americanism, history, and ideology. Sadly, the Radioactive Boy Scout of the book's title died from addiction at 39. Nevertheless, the story of his halvyon days is one worth reading.
His ambition was rewarded with his mom's shed becoming a Superfund site.
Author Ken Silverstein tells this surprising tale with brevity and wit, but one gets the sense that he needed to up his page count and did so with detours into the history of nuclear power and the Boy Scouts of America. Further, Silverstein puts his antinuclear orientation front and center. I'm not sure that I needed either the detours or the ideology, but I was interested and entertained by the story of a very bright teenager trying to do something that no adults in his life believed remotely within the scope of his talents or abilities. Thing is, he got a lot closer to success than anyone would have thought.
Thus, this book is an interesting combination of can-do Americanism, history, and ideology. Sadly, the Radioactive Boy Scout of the book's title died from addiction at 39. Nevertheless, the story of his halvyon days is one worth reading.
This book held my interest enough to let me finish it, but not much beyond that. It's a classic tale of what will go wrong when a broken family won't deal with a broken son. It tried to hard to be shocking. It essentially is the story of a misfit kid who tries to build a breeder reactor in his yard.
I got about halfway through this book and decided not to finish it. I was able to use it for class, and I just wasn't all that interested anymore.