I recently finished reading a fascinating little book: The Radioactive Boyscout. The almost unbelievable tale of David Hahn, a Michigan teenager famed for building a nuclear reactor in his Mum's shed.

Far from only having the best title ever, this is a compelling tale of ingenuity, daring and homemade fireworks. It follows our young hero from early chemistry projects improvising hair dyes to irradiation of thorium and uranium. A true L'Oreal to Lockheed story.

Despite his reckless and arguably insane activities, you really feel a lot of sympathy for Hahn, and can't help but will him on to his eventual goal, however dangerous the result might have been.

Interleaved with tales of Hahn's progress are details of the history of the atomic age, from the unbridled optimism as the potential of the atom was explored, to modern scepticism following accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Some of the Amazon reviews I read said these asides were too distracting from the main plot, but I felt they enhance it. Possibly because some of my favourite novels have interweaved plotlines (see anything by Neal Stevenson or Iain M. Banks). This historic view offered a sense of balance to Hahn's tale, providing a cautionary counterpoint to Hahn's relentless enthusiasm and casual disregard for safety.

The thing that stuck out most to me was how Hahn was effectively labelled as an underachiever by many of his teachers. Yet despite having a poor grasp of spelling and grammar, he was still able to get a hell of a long way in building his model reactor. This probably says a lot about how we judge people's ability, and too readily dismiss someone's opinion based on trivial aspects of their character. So next time you're reading YouTube or Digg comments, remember: the kid using the wrong "there" today might just be making a warp drive in his garage tomorrow.

If you even have a casual interest in science, you will love this book!

[The Radioactive Boyscout on Amazon]