Actually, eschereal, neutron emission is a natural form of radiation, albeit a relatively rare one. And “splitting the atom” is a perfectly accurate description of fission. It’s not an accurate description of transmutation of uranium to plutonium, but that’s because transmutation of uranium to plutonium isn’t fission. Actual fission converts uranium to nuclei about half the size, such as xenon, iodine, and barium.
Did you read the Harper’s article? It was a lot more than that.
None of the websites reporting the death seem to be able to add to that information. It appears that most of them are reporting information that ultimately comes from the TRibutes website, which gives no cause of death.
The kid was dangerously careless and cavalier in his attitude towards radioactive materials and experimenting with potentially hazardous materials.
But in some ways, I’m more annoyed at the guy who wrote the book about him. He was highly critical of the Boy Scouts, apparently just for being the organization they are. He was also highly critical of the book Hahn was influenced by, The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. I still have my copy. It’s an extremely good guide to understanding chemistry using a home lab, built of what was then easily-available household items (some of the stuff is more difficult to get, and they don’t make batteries out of carbon rods in manganese dioxide paste anymore). Certainly the book instructs kids in using hazardous chemicals (It tells you how to make chlorine gas, for instance. But it also tells you how to handle it properly) I learned an enormous amount from that book. It’s still available online, at a number of sites:
Agreed - Ken Silverstein’s account of the whole mess, either at article or book length, was strikingly mediocre.
There is something [can’t remember what it is called] where you pick at your face and leave scabby bits like that, also associated with formiculation [insect crawling under skin feeling, mental illness or also can be a neurological issue associated with some medications] Perhaps he had the habit of licking his skin like that.
[quibble]formication[/quibble]
Sure they do. “Heavy duty” batteries–specifically, ones that don’t say “alkaline”–will have the carbon rods. Still perfectly useful for things like remote controls where the battery will probably start leaking before running out of juice.
the dollar stores are full of em …from sunbeam to ones that have nary a word of printed English on em
I notice the author didn’t mention the radium Hahn got from the bottle of paint. I guess he feels it wasn’t really a factor. Interesting.
Yeah, but your general run-of-the-mill batteries from K-Mart or wherever will invariably be of different construction.
I want my carbon rods!
I remember at least trying to shape the ends into points and creating an arc lamp.
Don’t remember blinding myself, so it probably didn’t work.
I also want my little vial of mercury and the asbestos insulation back…
As far as the anode/cathode, low priced non-alkaline batteries will be carbon zinc. What might differ is the electrolyte. Heavy duty ones will have zinc chloride. Not sure what one would want to do with that. Or ammonium chloride for really cheapo ones.
Batteries should be labeled correctly if you stick to name brands like Ray-o-Vac. (Certain devices require the right type of battery so the good companies don’t want consumers griping about damage.)
Delusional parasitosis
This is also what people who claim to have “Morgellons” are probably suffering from.
yeah but the spots are on his face and it might be liver mulfunction causing it.
When the liver gets sick it produces cholesterol and the sebecaous glands happily try to lower the blood level of cholesterol. Adults get cholesterol zits on the face … especially the eye lids but can be the face in general.
Whether it was alcoholism (as his mental illness makes him unable to control himself) or cancer (which maybe metastised from lung cancer or bone marrow cancers …) there is no clue
I’d be cautious about diagnosis based on one picture. There are quite a few skin conditions that can result in something like that. We also see only his face, we don’t know if it’s limited to that or actually all over his body.
If you’re refering to xanthelasma or xanthoma they do not look like what is in David Hahn’s mugshot. My mother had them due to familial hypercholesterolemia (they can have other causes) and I can confidently state that they do not progress to red, scabby lesions. Also, they’re not “cholesterol zits”
Which is the important thing to remember - we don’t really know what caused his skin problems. Just remember it’s all speculation and guessing.
So how many more decay events would we need to witness to accurately determine the half-life of radioactive boyscouts?
Why no one with significant radioactive contamination cannot work in the nuclear navy?
Also, does anyone from here remember the time he was on the forum? What was his writing style and how did you suspect he was mentally ill?
Btw, Hahn is rooster in german.
You could certainly work on a nuclear-powered ship like an aircraft carrier, but no way in hell would you be allowed near the reactor. My understanding is that Hahn wanted a nuclear-related career but that wan’t going to happen. Two reasons I can think of:
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Anyone that careless with radioactive anything would be allowed near a reactor or reactor-grade (or bomb grade) materials
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There is a lifetime limit of radiation exposure in nuclear professions. Hahn may or may not have already exceeded that, but between refusing of medical screening and the possibility that might limit his military career length that just wan’t going to happen.
Why hire Hahn when there was a pool of candidates who had proven more responsible in their actions (by not doing stupid shit with radioactive stuff) and could have full careers?
I do, since I was very interested in his case, and then was quite saddened to discover what was going on with him. Especially when I found the court records of his drug arrests.
His writing style here (and on a couple of dating sites he posted on using the same username) was extremely disjointed and hard to parse, but the gist was that he had a theory that he had a brain disorder he termed “weak brain human” and that he might have been deliberately infected with it by the government, and he was looking for girls who were also “weak brain humans” to date.
Do they test for radiation levels before a sailor joins the submarine service (which would have ended Hahn’s hopes of a sub career at the start)? And if they don’t, how do they know a sailor is exceeding that limit?