A 17-year-old boy built his own nuclear reactor. What happened? It affected 40,000 people.

Can one person build a nuclear reactor on his own? I'm afraid it's a difficult thing to do.

If this person has not received the corresponding formal education, it would be even more unimaginable, but all this really happened. In history, there was indeed a 17-year-old boy who built a small nuclear reactor by himself, and eventually affected 40,000 people. His name is David Hahn. David was born in 1976. When he was young, his parents divorced and he lived with his father throughout his childhood. When David was 6 years old, he showed a strong interest in scientific experiments. At the age of 10, he read the first relatively professional science book "The Golden Book of Chemical Experiments", which was given to him by David's grandfather.

In the early 20th century, the Boy Scouting movement of America emerged.

The Boy Scouts of America is not a real army, but a non-governmental organization. It was founded by Boyce in 1910 and has existed for more than a century. It filed for bankruptcy in 2020 due to a sexual assault lawsuit. David joined the Boy Scouts when he was a teenager. Among the Boy Scouts, members can obtain medals and be promoted by completing activities, and the "Eagle Medal" is the highest honor that the Boy Scouts can receive. Only about 4% of the members can receive this honor. At that time, there was a medal about atomic energy in the Boy Scouts. Winning this medal would undoubtedly increase the competitiveness of obtaining the Eagle Medal. David, who had a strong interest in experiments since he was a child, set his sights on this medal. He transformed his room into a laboratory and used all his pocket money to buy experimental equipment. Later, in order to obtain more experimental materials, he also took a part-time job.

It’s hard to imagine that when David was only 12 years old, he produced nitroglycerin in his own laboratory.

However, David's later experimental experience was not so smooth, because his experiments became more and more dangerous. Soon after, the walls and floors of his room were blown to pieces by him, and later even his eyes were injured in the experiment. After all this, his father finally couldn't suppress his anger and kicked him out of the house, so David had to move in with his mother. David, who moved in with his mother, got his own little world, because there was a shed in his mother's yard, which was an ideal experimental place for David. Since he had never lived with his mother since he was a child, his mother didn't know how to discipline her children, and basically ignored what David did.

With a good experimental environment, David began to immerse himself in research related to atomic energy, and finally won the Eagle Medal at the age of 15 by demonstrating the working principle of a nuclear reactor.

However, winning the Eagle Medal was not David's ultimate goal. Since he had already figured out the working principle of a nuclear reactor, why not actually build one? David decided to build his own nuclear reactor, but the plan encountered obstacles at the beginning. He had no way to get the corresponding materials. So David began to call the government and related industrial organizations, pretending to be a university physics professor. With his understanding of atomic energy, he really fooled many people and bought a small amount of radioactive materials.

However, this amount of material was not enough, so David continued to purchase 200 smoke detectors, some old-fashioned luminous clocks and a large number of batteries by pretending to be a professor.

With these things, David obtained americium from smoke detectors, radium from luminous clocks, and lithium from batteries through experimental methods. It is unimaginable that David also made a neutron gun by himself, and used it to convert non-radioactive elements into radioactive isotopes. Finally, when David was 17 years old, everything was ready, and he finally started to build his own nuclear reactor. Everything went smoothly, and soon David's nuclear reactor was completed. However, David, who was not a professional, obviously underestimated the dangers of nuclear reactors until he began to detect the radiation around the reactor.

David discovered that not only was there serious radiation in his laboratory, but there was also radiation on the street and in the homes of his neighbors on the other side of the street. At this time, David finally realized that "something was wrong."

When David tried to transport the reactor to another place, he was discovered by his neighbors and called the police. The neighbors thought he was stealing tires, but they found a reactor. Later, after testing, it was found that about 40,000 people were harmed by radiation because of David's reactor. David's mother committed suicide a year later because she couldn't stand the accusations of the neighbors around her. David also died accidentally due to alcoholism in 2016. Although David's behavior brought bad consequences to the neighbors around him, we have to admit that he is indeed a genius boy.

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