Can You Legally Split Atoms at Home?

[lisab]

A Swedish man who was arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen said Wednesday he was only doing it as a hobby.

Richard Handl told The Associated Press that he had the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium in his apartment in southern Sweden when police showed up and arrested him on charges of unauthorized possession of nuclear material.

I hate to discourage anyone from doing science ("Stand Back!" indeed), but this goes a bit too far. While I admire his enthusiasm, if I lived next to this guy I'd be concerned.

 

[micromass]

Wow!

I wonder where he found all those radioactive substances...

 

[jtbell]

The americium probably came from smoke detectors.

 

[khemist]

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html

There is a book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/037550351X/?tag=pfamazon01-20

Its quite a good read.

 

[Ken Natton]

Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. This is extremely amusing and deeply horrifying in equal measure. I would have thought that the technical challenges went way beyond the simple matter of obtaining the radioactive material. It is easy to say ‘oh just fire some neutrons at some atoms of uranium-235’, the practicalities of actually doing that are somewhat more involved. If these two individuals were able to do it in their kitchen and their potting shed, it does put into perspective the idea of Iran and North Korea doing it.

 

[flyingpig]

Lol what the hell maybe he should've asked Kaku to helphim.

 

[Ryan_m_b]

Is this the same guy who rang up the Swedish radioactive association (or whatever they're called) for advise on this?

 

[Herr Malus]

Same guy, yeah. Their response was to send the cops after him.

Wasn't there a boy scout who tried to do something similar (I think it was actually make a breeder reactor) in the US a few years back? I also seem to recall a very similar item (either splitting atoms or making reactors) on my uni's scavenger hunt list once.

 

[mege]

Same guy, yeah. Their response was to send the cops after him.

Wasn't there a boy scout who tried to do something similar (I think it was actually make a breeder reactor) in the US a few years back? I also seem to recall a very similar item (either splitting atoms or making reactors) on my uni's scavenger hunt list once.

It was a http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091472/" ... :p

 

[Herr Malus]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

 

[Ken Natton]

Wasn't there a boy scout who tried to do something similar (I think it was actually make a breeder reactor) in the US a few years back?

Yes, it's the story khemist linked to in post #4.

 

[Averagesupernova]

I thought this was going to be a thread on microwave ovens.

 

[brewnog]

I wonder where he found all those radioactive substances...

Smoke detectors and eBay (using the buy it now feature, apparently).