The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor Review

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(More customer reviews)This book's title immediately caught my attention. Since I've been working in the nuclear field as a radiation dosimetry specialist for almost 30 years now, I couldn't help but to wonder what this young man could have done to be the subject of a book with such a title. So, I bought the book out of curiosity and read it with intense fascination. It became clear to me that this young man is gifted; and if his efforts could be properly focused, he could do great things. The book is a page turner. It is well written and in an engaging style. The author weaves a truly riveting story - and a true one on top of that. Unfortunately, the book has two shortcomings, i.e., the reasons for four stars instead of five. First of all, there are technical errors; here are only two examples: Roentgen discovered x rays in 1895 and not in 1896 as indicated on page 30; also, and more importantly, the statement on page 159 that beta particles from tritium can penetrate one or two centimeters of human flesh is grossly incorrect. In fact, the most energetic beta particles emitted by the tritium nucleus cannot even penetrate the skin's dead cell layer on the outer surface of the skin - they are simply not fast enough to give a radiation dose even to the skin, let alone deeper human flesh. The second shortcoming is the book's anti-nuke flavor. Tongue-in-cheek statements that tend to put into question the competence of engineers and scientists who are trying to improve the human condition should be replaced by statements that put as much emphasis on the successes and breakthroughs, as on the errors and misjudgments; otherwise a very misleading, erroneous and biased impression may be acquired by those simply wishing to learn the facts. At any rate, it is not my intent to belabor these points. This book presents a truly exciting story and will not disappoint; but by no means should it be used as an accurate historical or technical reference in nuclear science.

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