![]() Unaware that red phosphorus is pyrophoric, David had been pounding it with a screwdriver and ignited it.Īfter achieving the rank of Eagle Scout, Hahn decided he wanted to experiment with real radioactivity, not merely the models he had used to earn his badge. There they found David lying semiconscious on the floor, his eyebrows smoking. One night as were sitting in the living room watching TV, the house was rocked by an explosion in the basement. His “laboratory” was eventually moved to the potting shed behind his mother’s house, after an incident in his father’s basement that did not go as planned: According to a 1998 Harper’s profile of Hahn written by Ken Silverstein, “He once appeared at a scout meeting with a bright orange face caused by an overdose of canthaxanthin, which he was taking to test methods of artificial tanning.” In another instance, he was held responsible for a blowing a large hole in the wall of a Boy Scout tent after accidentally igniting a stockpile of powdered magnesium he had brought along. Throughout his childhood, Hahn had been obsessed with chemistry, teaching himself everything he knew from encyclopedias, textbooks, and chemistry sets, while personal safety did not seem to be a concern of his. ![]() By now, though, David had far grander ambitions. To earn it he made a drawing showing how nuclear fission occurs, visited a hospital radiology unit to learn about the medical uses of radioisotopes and built a model reactor using a juice can, coat hangers, soda straws, kitchen matches, and rubber bands. On, a 14-year-old Boy Scout named David Hahn earned an Atomic Energy merit badge, the first (and likely only) person in the history of Troop 371 in Clinton Township, Michigan, to receive a badge in that discipline:ĭavid was awarded his Atomic Energy merit badge on May 10, 1991, five months shy of his fifteenth birthday.
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