Today I felt really stupid at work (long story, not worth retelling,) and I thought to myself "you know what? You know who's really smart? The Radioactive Boy Scout. I wondered whatever happened to him?
For the uninitiated, the Radioactive Boy Scout was David Hahn. When Hahn was in high school, he tried to build a breeder reactor under the guise of using the experiment to attain Eagle Scout status. In reality, he was able to build a neutron source, which is not that far from a dirty bomb.
His unbelieveable story inspired the book the Radioactive Boy Scout in 2004, which I read shortly after its release. It was an excellent read.
So I looked up David Hahn on the internet and come to find out he's dead.
He died 6 years ago, a month before his 40th birthday. I thought that he may have died of some rare form of cancer. Nope. Alcohol and Fentanyl intoxication.
And I was sad. Sad for a person I never met. Leaving high school, he should have had the world at his feet, instead we are talking about him in the past tense.
Time and potential intersect at interesting axes (plural of axis.)
I think I'm going to sit quietly in the dark and listen to music for a while.