uh well uh in the news this week I've uh
heard these stories of this uh guy
apparently called Richard handle who's
uh been apparently trying to make a
small nuclear reactor in his
kitchen yeah I think it was uh in Sweden
and in his kitchen on his oven top by
the looks of it uh there's a picture
here where things have gone a bit wrong
and everything's blown up all over the
place uh well I've only just found out
about this so I've just been looking it
up now and but according to this blog
here he was uh mixing amarium radium and
brillium in 96% sulfuric acid which
doesn't sound like a very nice mixture I
have to say I think what he was trying
to do was uh use that mixture to mix
them more efficiently so that he had uh
a mixture of these compounds that he
could then use in this sort of so-called
nuclear reactor that he was trying to
construct uh what I can gather is that
what he was trying to do was to split
atoms which is nuclear fion so that's
basically you take the atomic core and
you split it up into more than one
part what do you think about that um
well there's a bit of me wonders why he
was trying to do this because actually
this happens in nature all the time
radioactivity is a part of nature uh I'm
not really sure why specifically he
wanted to do it with these particular
elements and what he was actually aiming
to get um uh what I do know is it looks
kind of dangerous from the result on top
of his
cooker the thing about danger is it
really comes down to how much of a
particular material or chemical or
compound that you actually have now from
what I've managed to pick up he said
that when he scanned uh the area with
his detector he couldn't actually pick
up any radioactivity which would imply
that he actually had very small
quantities nevertheless it's really not
a good idea to have chemicals like this
not in a laboratory setting because they
could have ended up in you know going
down the sink and getting into the water
he's he's done quite a bit of homework I
have to say if we if we scroll down uh
he's got some items here about uranium
and he talks about the different
isotopes and how only certain Isotopes
are usable uh for the nuclear industry
for fision and he mentions thorium and
he also mentions aluminium brillium a
little bit f further down uh we've got
radium and it talks about amarium and
how it's used in smoke detectors which
most households have so we've all got
very small quantities of amum in our own
houses I think what he was trying to do
was use the aminium to supply a stream
of neutrons and that these neutrons
would bash up whichever atom he had in
mind and break it up and cause the
fision but I can't be sure which ones he
was actually targeted
well I think he's got in trouble cuz
you're not really supposed to have
chemicals like this in a normal
household setting uh it's one thing to
handle them in a laboratory but like I
say if you've got them in a house they
could get into Wastewater streams going
out for the you know the general public
could be exposed to these and actually
although the the actual quantities may
not be large it's not really the point
you can't just have everybody using all
of these chemicals otherwise the whole
landscape would end up covered with them
so that's why he's in trouble I
think but why should science be
restricted to scientists maybe he was
going to find some amazing breakthrough
isn't there a chance he'll make a great
breakthrough um there's always a chance
but you've got to do these things safely
you know you can't just run away with a
great idea it's it's all fine and well
if you get a fantastic result but if you
kill yourself in the process while I
think you've defeated your own
objectives really
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as far as I know if you split atoms
that's really dangerous is there a
chance that he would blow up a whole
city or something like that I don't
think so because of the scale that I
think he was working out uh like I said
if he couldn't detect these um compounds
above background he clearly can't have
been working with very much and you
actually need quite reasonable often
kilogram quantities of these sorts of
elements to even begin to start
constructing bombs and even then you've
really got to know what you're doing to
make them work well I have to say I'm qu
it's quite surprising to hear that
compounds like this can be bought on
eBay although what I have to say is if
they are out there on eBay I'd be quite
interested to know just how pure they
really are you're skeptical he I'm a
little bit skeptical but I'm a scientist
we're always skeptical well I have to
say I do admire his uh Drive of
curiosity uh but it's absolutely not
something that I would recommend that
you do in your own home why just because
I think the danger outweighs the benefit
and at the end of the day if you end up
injuring yourself it's just not worth it
this is why we have all these levels of
safety and training and science to
ensure that we can do our research
safely