David Hahn

Plus they keep carting off barrel after barrel branded with radiation labels on them.

You and the other neighbors wonder, what did that kid get up to in his backyard? David Hahn's life, though tragic, was an extremely fascinating one, filled with secrecy, life-threatening danger and an obsessive quest for knowledge that culminated in his unfortunate end.

Although his potential for greatness went unrealized due to a reckless abandon that cut his life short, his genius allowed him to accomplish things that no one even dreamed possible.

Ever heard of the term, don't try this at home?

Especially if you leave them with this information unsupervised.

Surprisingly, that's where our story begins.

when David Hahn was handed a book that was absolutely not appropriate for children.

It sent him down a path that not only put him in danger, but also his entire neighborhood.

I had to do so much work to write this book, and believe me, it was a struggle.

So I think it's fair to say that both of us were amazed by the story of David Hahn, who as a teenager, had a tremendous and almost innate grasp of these topics.

In fact, his fascination with nuclear science led him to build a model nuclear reactor in his backyard.

David and his obsession are the subject of Ken Silverstein's book, The Radioactive Boy Scout.

... that people are gonna wanna read.

Yeah, for sure.

And this kid's name, he's, his name is David Hahn.

What-- Could you tell, do you have a little bit of background on him?

Well, thank you, David, and we're gonna talk about another David.

That is David Hahn, the nuclear Boy Scout.

Yep.

And this is one of those where we owe a, a huge debt to a, a single human, uh, because this story was m- may have just gone fairly unnoticed as a, a pretty localized local newspaper item-

And apparently, that's how Ken came across the story and began researching it.

So there's two people that were responsible for it, at least.

Yeah, and three, 'cause we have to count David Hahn-

[laughs] Yeah

Yeah, and people have done it.

Nuclear Boy Scout went to the library.

Libraries are going to be the end of everything.

You look like you're going to say something here.