Atomic Experiments for Boys by Raymond Yates

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source: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ab/c0/8e/abc08e9174282e246c323b9d545909c4.jpg

While doing the blog post on the other authors contemporary with Alfred P. Morgan:

https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/11/alfred-p-morgan-had-rivals.html

I saw this title by Raymond Yates & did a quick search and found this scanned copy:

https://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/e_AEFB.PDF

BTW, the Dangerous Laboratories has several other ebooks similar to the Yates book:

https://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/e_books.html

Also found this rather terse and dismissive review:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/raymond-f-yates-4/atomic-experiments-for-boys/

I guess I have to sorta agree, the Yates book suffers in comparison to this one:

https://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/e_atomics.pdf

But the kind of "seat of the pants, build it yourself" motivation of the Yates book is fun.

After looking at these books I was reminded of the article in Harper's Magazine: The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein:

https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/

David Hahn was a teenage kid in Michigan who was driven to mess with radioactive stuff - his dream was to build his own reactor.  It's a fascinating story.  David's Dad gave him a copy of the Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments:

https://archive.org/details/brent-gbc

David was very resourceful (unfortunately criminal at times) in pursuing his dream.  He ended up scaring people and like other troubled youth found himself in the service.  

I don't think David would have been too impressed with Atomic Experiments for Boys either but for different reasons :)

I remember hearing, in chemistry class, Professor Watters at UWM, telling us about atomic energy.  Not even considering the waste issue, atomic energy has basically the same problem as oil/gas/coal:  finite resources.  Very little Uranium is actually the usable U235, most of it is the U238 which is more suitable for tank armor or anti-tank shells.  For atomic power to have ever taken off we would have had to have a Plutonium bonanza.  Convert that almost inert U238 to crazy radioactive P239 with breeder reactors on a massive scale.  Yikes !  

I suspect the same thing might be true with fusion power - if it ever actually works will there be enough of whatever fuel is required ?  Plain old Hydrogen works fine for fusion on the Sun but won't be much use in a fusion reactor here on earth.

Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm