FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for September 28, 2024

Do it in school.

I’ve read this: “The Radioactive Boy Scout: The True Story of a Boy and His Backyard Nuclear Reactor”, by Ken Silverstein. The EPA had to come and clean up his project.

Let them do it. They can hook up to the grid and make your electric meter run backwards.

What is the big deal in the 1950’s they sold a kids toy that was just that it was the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Laboratory it even came with uranium ( >

Where were you even get the material, wiseguy?

Younger Sheldon

In answer to the question in the first panel, YES.

Sounds like Young Sheldon.

Even Sheldon Cooper didn’t try until he was 12.

I can’t get near radiation without getting a psychosomatic illness

Sheldon Cooper built his in the shed.

Most parents would laugh and say to go ahead. If this mom OK’d it, Jason prob’ly would succeed in building it.

Definitely an outdoor activity.

Oh let them play. It’s not like they’re going to build a real one.

My brother once built a simple nuclear reactor simulator. No radioactive materials involved. He put a blinker light bulb in a box, made holes in the box big enough to slide a pencil through, and used pencils with different colors of paint to show how control rods work. Depending on the color of paint on the pencil (and how much of each pencil was inside the box with the bulb), the bulb would blink faster or slower.

Jason, next time go ask your dad. And what are you and Marcus trying to build that requires a small scale nuclear reactor?

The youngest of my three older brothers built a Van de Graaff generator in the basement. Tagged himself with it, too.

If a university basement was good enough for the Manhattan Project people, it should be good enough for you, Jason.

What if we already did?

You can build a fusion reactor. Not a fission one…

how about the attic??

What’s to stop him from building one anyway?