Swedish Man Arrested for Trying to Split Atoms

gregorio

gregorio

Active member
A SWEDISH man who was arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen says he was only doing it as a hobby.

Richard Handl said 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 unauthorised possession of nuclear material.

The 31-year-old Handl said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.

Only later did he realise it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden's Radiation Authority, which answered by sending the police.

"I have always been interested in physics and chemistry," Handl said, adding he just wanted to "see if it's possible to split atoms at home."

The police raid took place in late July, but police have refused to comment.

If convicted, Handl could face fines or up to two years in prison.

Although he says police didn't detect dangerous levels of radiation in his apartment, he now acknowledges the project wasn't such a good idea.

"From now on, I will stick to the theory," he said.
 
Theres a book about a kid who set up a semi-working nuclear reactor in his shed in PA. The guy was like 19 years old when he did this. Check the book out, its called The Radioactive Boy Scout
 
i was wondering that too and i was gonna google it but i dont feel like being put on any kind of terrorist watch list
 
Radioactive material: not that hard to get.

Weapons grade material is super pure U235, which requires a complicated refining process. His radioactive materials would not have cause a nuke sized explosion if things went wrong, he was just tinkering. There are probably a number of ways that he could have gotten them. Just have to be resourceful.

And why arrest this guy? Somebody hire him, anyone that can make a nuclear meltdown on their kitchen stove should be rewarded not imprisoned lol.
 
you can get small amounts of americium from smoke detectors

also i hope that guy doesnt go to jail, he wasnt trying to hurt anyone he was just curious
 
That's what I was thinking the whole time...

If I had the knowhow and the means to do that, I'd do it in a second. Fucking awesome, in my opinion.

Safe? no... but it's pretty fucking cool...

I heard a story of some dude in Nevada... and he had his entire house running on some RTG's that he had somehow obtained from the former soviet union... they were like old generators that were used on unmanned lighthouses or something and ran on Strontium-90. Super gnarly, since his house was basically being run on spent nuclear fuel lol.
 
A kid that used to go to my high school, he got picked up by the Department of Defense because he was so smart. He can buy like uranium and shit, and has a reactor in his garage
 
hes just trying to be the Radioactive Boy Scout

all of you should go read about that guy right now.
 
simply the fact that he was able to nearly make a nuclear reactor in his kitchen shows that he is really fucking smart. this guy is no idiot, swedish government should give him like a defense or military scientist job lol.
 
i knew those elements could be found in smoke detectors and glowing watch hands and I was thinking to myself "there's no way he just went about getting tons of those for the little amount of material they had in them" but sure enough, he did.
 
radium and americium will radioactively decay on their own, all he needed to do was shoot a neutron into one of the atoms to speed it up
 
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