An interesting story about a boy and his nuclear materials!

[Bungleau]

Originally posted by Leonis: quote: Originally posted by Sir Kenyth: quote: Originally posted by Calaethis Dragonsbane: Pretty disturbing story... is it true?

According to the source, who is Karl Kruszelnicki.

Karl Kruszelnicki used to be a "scientist, engineer and doctor", but is currently an author and science commentator on radio and television. He is the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at the University of Sydney, in the Science Foundation of the Physics Department. [/QUOTE]Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki still is a "scientist, engineer and doctor". (being "an author and science commentator on radio and television" doesn't automatically negate one's previous qualifications)

He's always been a reasonably reliable source and a really nice guy to boot (first hand experience here). I'd be interested to see the debunking of Professor Kruszelnicki's research. - Although he is very eager to admit when he's made a mistake.... [/QUOTE]I'm curious about the research... the original Harper's article is credited to someone named Ken Silverstein, and Prof. K's site (sorry, too hard to spell) which contains the article seems to be lifted almost completely from the Harper's article. I see no new data added. And no crediting of Harper's as a source, either.

In trying to find proof that Harper's ran this article in November 1998, I came across this site, the Journal of Chemical Education, who appear to be suspicious of the story's truth. I've dropped an email over to that professor to get his thoughts.

In looking more, I tend to believe that the article was written in Harper's in November, 1998. I get more and more suspicious about the truth or the writer's license taken into account. For example,

"Chopping up the shed with chainsaws" -- that will send tiny particles of metal flying into the air (the equivalent of sawdust). No mention of what was involved in cleaning that up...

"Sealed into 39 barrels which were trucked to the Great Salt Lake desert" (or something like that) -- and how many regulations do you think you need to go through to truck heavy radioactive waste across multiple state lines?

I'm more and more skeptical. And given that Ken Silverstein, the author, is from the East Coast, it sounds like many of the details were added in to give the story some character and make it appear more real.

And I just came across something that makes it seem legit... here.

So go figure. I still don't know, but my skeptical bone has been hit.

[Sir Kenyth]

Bungleau, I'm thinking this is a case of serial embellishment. A story that started with truth and was retold with embellishment enough times to be substantially different from the original account.

[Bungleau]

I'm now moving into a different thought -- that it was a simple story at first, blown out of proportion and embellished by an overzealous author. All accounts that I've found seem to stem from the original Harper's article (which was apparently reprinted and truncated in Reader's Digest), and no one else thought much of it. I came across one discussion board where someone called the DEQ and talked to one of the FEMA-type people, who verified the story.

Either it's legit, or someone has gone through a tremendous amount of effort to put legs to an urban legend. I do know that I've wasted more than enough brain cells on it, so [img]graemlins/drinkup.gif[/img]

[Lord Lothar]

Hmm, sounds like an interesting story. I checked on Snopes but nothing came up about this.

[Sir Kenyth]

I found a site with a picture. This story appears to be true. There are minor discrepancies as to where he found the uranium ore. He seems to have made some from the Thorium and located tiny amounts in pitchblende he found along Lake Huron. Other sources say he managed to con some from a company when the previous attempts with Thorium and pitchblende didn't work. Regardless, he made a makeshift mini reactor core and irradiated the shed to 1000 times the normal background level. This is after he panicked and dismantled the makeshift reactor. He himself took a not-negligible amount af radiation. Though he didn't poison himself, he may find some undesirable consequences when he gets older. I imagine his cancer risk is waaaayyyyy up there!