The Boy Who Played with Fusion

by Tom Clynes

  The Boy Who Played with Fusion had a crooked path from concept to completion—and as a result benefitted from the guidance of several talented editors, including GQ’s Mike Benoist and Donovan Hohn. The story migrated a few blocks downtown to Popular Science, helmed at the time by Mark Jannot, with whom I’ve had the longest and most productive writer/editor partnership of my career. While Mark encouraged me, as he always has, to make the story better and better, editor Cliff Ransom came up with a title that perfectly fit both magazine story and book.

  Amanda Cook at Crown was the first to ask if I’d consider writing a book, and I greatly appreciate her interest as well as our initial exchange of ideas. The project eventually landed in the hands of Eamon Dolan at HMH, whose sharp instincts helped to transform a swollen mass of words into something resembling an artful narrative. Among the highlights of our collaboration were a series of brain-sampling sessions that rank among the most stimulating conversations I’ve ever had. These exchanges helped to shape the book’s structure and give it thematic legs (as well as amputate a few extra limbs that threatened to trip it up).

  Eamon’s team managed the makeover from manuscript to book. Among those who did double duty to make the pages stand up straight were production editor Lisa Glover, copyeditor Tracy Roe, page designer Chrissy Kurpeski, and editorial assistants Ben Hyman and Rosemary McGuinness. I also appreciate the work of independent researchers Rachel Greene, Sarah Kuljian, Katherine Plumhoff, and Kenny Wassus.

  I was lucky to have literary agent David McCormick on my side. Across the continent, my thanks go out to film agent Dana Spector at Paradigm Talent Agency. And across the Atlantic, my appreciation extends to Faber & Faber’s Julian Loose, who brought Taylor’s story to readers in the UK and the wider English-speaking world.

  Some of my favorite writers and literary friends—Jeremiah Chamberlain, Bill Lychack, Miles Harvey, and Bob Parks—pulled themselves away from their own work to help me unearth the bits of clarity within my drafts, which benefitted greatly from their thoughtful and inspired ideas. Each of them saved me from literary embarrassment, just as astrophysicist Greg Tarlé and writer/physicist/magician Alex Stone saved me from scientific embarrassment. (Any errors that remain are, of course, my own.)

  My gratitude extends to the scores of scientists, educators, psychologists, and others who shared knowledge, insights, and access. They include Susan Assouline, Sarah Andrew-Vaughan, Linda Brody, Shawn Carlson, Francisco Xavier Castellanos, Mark Cendrowski, Tom Chesshir, Jane Clarenbach, Caren Cooper, Steven Cowley, Chris Critch, Lee Ann Dickinson-Kelley, Carol Dweck, Lee Dodds, Anthony Fauci, David Henry Feldman, David Hahn, Richard Hull, Kristina Johnson, Ralf Kaiser, Scott Barry Kaufman, Felice Kaufmann, Barbara Kerr, Tom Ligon, David Lubinski, Dona Matthews, Edward Moses, Thiago Olson, Thomas Ruth, Joanne Ruthsatz, David Saltzberg, Ted Selker, Dean Keith Simonton, Martin Storksdieck, Rena Subotnik, Jonathan Wai, Ed Wingate, Ellen Winner, and Chuck Yu. If I’ve forgotten anyone, please accept my apology.

  I’ve been gifted with a support system of generous, encouraging, and patient friends and family. My sisters—Julie, Melinda, and Karen—have always been my best friends, sustaining me with love and laughs. My parents have supported me in ways that include, most profoundly, an acceptance of the paths I’ve taken in my life, which are so very different from their own. The many friends who lent a physical or emotional hand include Jim Burnstein, Dede Cummings, Jennifer Jay, Anne Latchis, Laura Monschau, Dawn MacKeen, Cathy Mizgerd, Birgit Rieck, the Poplin family, Johnny Swing, Patrick Symmes, Pam Vitaz, Kimberly Rankin, Robin Westen, and Rachel Rotger—who emerged, late in the game, as a partner-in-crime and muse-in-chief.

  Finally, I turn to my young sons, Charlie and Joe, to whom this book—and all else in my life—is dedicated. It’s ironic that the process of writing a book that is largely about parenting would so severely diminish my own capacity to parent (so much so that I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t do it again). Unique among those mentioned here, my children didn’t choose to participate in this process—or to deal with an often distracted, sleep-deprived, or absent dad.

  In some ways, though, the experience brought us closer together, and led us to a few beautiful and intriguing discoveries. Among them is the notion that our children can (and should) be our mentors. Charlie and Joe have taught me, most profoundly, that enthusiasm and raw curiosity can cut through a great many tough and challenging things. Now that my boys are growing older I can have conversations with them about the subjects I write about—or I can snap my laptop shut and roll off my chair to roughhouse with my rowdy little scientist/philosophers. Either way, what becomes clear is that playfulness and enthusiasm aren’t just for kids. They are also ours, as adults, to reclaim and keep—if we choose to do so. Without my sons, I’d never have fully understood this.

  As I rewrite the last sentences in this book for the last time, I fetch optimism from the realization that my sons, who were curious little boys when this project began, have grown into still-curious bigger boys; each a genius in his own way.

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION

  [>] identified as top performers by their teenage years: Jonathan Wai, “Of Brainiacs and Billionaires,” Psychology Today, 92 (2012): 78–85.

  [>] personal attributes to shine: Scott Barry Kaufman, “What Is Talent—and Can Science Spot What We Will Be Best At?,” Guardian, July 6, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jul/07/can-science-spot-talent-kaufman.

  2. THE PRE-NUCLEAR FAMILY

  [>] Hence Wilder filled and capped the first bottle of Coke: “History,” Coca-Cola/Dr Pepper Bottling Co., Nashville, Arkansas, www.coca-coladrpepper.com.

  4. SPACE CAMP

  [>] orbiter rocket: Daniel Lang, “A Romantic Urge,” New Yorker, April 21, 1951, 183.

  [>] Saturn project the go-ahead: Matthew Brzezinski, Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age (New York: Times Books, 2007), 84–85, 87, 91–92.

  [>] according to the Marist Poll: Felicity Savage, “What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?,” Amazing Stories, May 2, 2013.

  [>] top-ten career choice among children in the United Kingdom: Ibid.

  [>] sports camps encouraged physical development: Michael Neufeld, Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (New York: Vintage, 2008), 354–55.

  [>] so-called STEM subjects: Karen Woodruff, “A History of STEM—Reigniting the Challenge with NGSS and CCSS,” NASA Endeavor Science Teaching Certificate Project, http://www.us-satellite.net/STEMblog/?p=31.

  5. THE “RESPONSIBLE” RADIOACTIVE BOY SCOUT

  [>] Arkansas Municipal Auditorium: “Rock & Roll Highway 67 and the Arkansas Municipal Auditorium, Texarkana, Arkansas,” City of Texarkana, Arkansas Agenda, http://arkagenda.txkusa.org/2011/05162011/05162011agenda_html/item_9_05162011_clerk_rock%20n%20roll%20hwy%2067_tmac.pdf.

  [>] “I could do cooler stuff at home”: David Hahn, telephone interview with the author, February 14, 2014. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to David Hahn are from this interview.

  [>] “creating energy”: Ken Silverstein, The Radioactive Boy Scout (New York: Villard, 2005).

  6. THE COOKIE JAR

  [>] Marie Curie coined the term radioactivity: John M. Reynolds, An Introduction to Applied and Environmental Geophysics (Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons, 2011), 1934.

  [>] overturned established ideas in chemistry: L. Pearce Williams, “Curie, Pierre and Marie,” Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 8 (Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1986), 332.

  [>] had little sense of the damage that radiation could do: “Marie Curie: The Radium Institute (1919–1934),” American Institute of Physics, http://www.aip.org/history/curie/radinst3.htm.

  [>] worked unprotected for decades: Denise Grady, “A Glow in the Dark, and a Lesson in Scientific Peril,” New York Times, October 6, 1998.

  [>] carried radioisotopes in her pocket: James Shipman, Jerry D. Wilson, and Aaron Todd, An Introduction to Physical Science (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2009),
257.

  [>] “One of our joys”: Marie Curie, Pierre Curie: With Autobiographical Notes, trans. Charlotte and Vernon Kellogg (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 186–87.

  [>] Curie developed mobile x-ray stations: “Marie Curie: War Duty (1914–1919),” American Institute of Physics, http://www.aip.org/history/curie/war2.htm.

  [>] stored in locked lead-lined boxes: Craig J. Hogan, “We Are Made of Starstuff,” Science 292 (May 2001): 863.

  [>] than an equal number of atoms of uranium: “Radium: The Benchmark,” Los Alamos Science 23 (1995): 224–33.

  [>] permanent internal radiation source: Ibid.

  7. IN THE (GLOWING) FOOTSTEPS OF GIANTS

  [>] Roentgen made on November 8, 1895: Robert A. Novelline, Squire’s Fundamentals of Radiology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 1.

  [>] a high-frequency electromagnetic wave: “Henri Becquerel—Facts,” NobelPrize.org, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/becquerel-facts.html.

  [>] Uranium is produced by supernovae: “The Cosmic Origins of Uranium,” World Nuclear Association, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Uranium-Resources/The-Cosmic-Origins-of-Uranium/.

  [>] polonium and radium: “Marie Curie—Facts,” NobelPrize.org, http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1903/marie-curie-facts.html.

  [>] “It was as if you had fired a 15-inch naval shell”: James Rutherford, Gerald Holton, and Fletcher Watson, The Project Physics Course (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971).

  [>] the splitting of the atom: “The Nucleus: Rutherford, 1911,” Cambridge Physics, http://www.outreach.phy.cam.ac.uk/camphy/nucleus/nucleus_index.htm.

  [>] sources for the radioactive wares Hahn wanted to purchase: Silverstein,Radioactive Boy Scout.

  [>] unauthorized possession of nuclear material: Eric Yosomono, Dustin Koski, and Evan Symon, “The 6 Most Reckless Uses of Radioactive Material,” Cracked, January 7, 2012, http://www.cracked.com/article_19607_the-6-most-reckless-uses-radioactive-material_p2.html#ixzz2xM5e1ClB; “Richard Handl, Swedish Man, Tried to Set Up Nuclear Reactor at Home,” Huffington Post, August 3, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/richard-handl-nuclear-reactor-home_n_917585.html; Anthony Watts, “Don’t Try Nuclear Energy Experiments at Home,” WUWT , August 4, 2011, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/04/dont-try-nuclear-energy-experiments-at-home/.

  [>] the owner is required to notify the NRC: See http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/cfr/part031/part031-0012.html.

  8. ALPHA, BETA, GAMMA

  [>] radioactive gas in well water: J. J. Thomson, “Radio-Active Gas from Well Water,” Nature 67, no. 1748 (1903): 609.

  [>] surgeon general George H. Torney: Paul W. Frame, “Radioactive Curative Devices and Spas,” Oak Ridge Associated Universities, November 5, 1989, http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/quackstory.htm.

  [>] “radioactivity prevents insanity”: Ibid.

  [>] buried in a lead-lined coffin: Charlie Hintz, “The Radioactive Death of Eben Byers,” Cult of Weird, December 15, 2010, http://www.cultofweird.com/medical/eben-byers-radithor-poisoning/.

  [>] 28 from acute radiation exposure: “Health Impacts: Chernobyl Accident Appendix 2,” World Nuclear Association, last modified November 2009, http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Safety-of-Plants/Appendices/Chernobyl-Accident---Appendix-2--Health-Impacts/.

  [>] the number of eventual casualties caused by the radiation plume: United Nations Chernobyl Forum, “Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and Special Health Care Programmes,” World Health Organization, last modified 2006, http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/chernobyl/WHO%20Report%20on%20Chernobyl%20Health%20Effects%20July%2006.pdf.

  [>] four thousand additional cancer deaths: “Chernobyl: The True Scale of the Accident,” World Health Organization, last modified September 5, 2005, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/.

  [>] International Agency for Research on Cancer: “The Cancer Burden from Chernobyl in Europe,” International Agency for Research on Cancer, last modified April 20, 2006, http://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2006/pr168.html.

  [>] invisible particles they breathed: Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World (New York: Viking, 2010), 172–73.

  [>] smear their reputations: Ross Mullner, Deadly Glow: The Radium Dial Worker Tragedy (Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 1999); William Kovarik, “The Radium Girls,” updated from chapter 8 in Mark Neuzil and William Kovarik,Mass Media and Environmental Conflict: America’s Green Crusades (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996); Denise Grady, “A Glow in the Dark, and a Lesson in Scientific Peril,” New York Times, October 6, 1998.

  [>] “you can guarantee it will be closed down”: Carl Willis, telephone interview with the author, March 20, 2014.

  [>] “like some of the old Third World medical machines”: William Kolb, interview with the author, October 5, 2013, Richmond, Virginia.

  [>] facility northeast of Tokyo: NHK TV crew, A Slow Death: 83 Days of Radiation Sickness (New York: Vertical, 2008).

  9. TRUST BUT VERIFY

  [>] “don’t call it transmutation”: Muriel Howorth, Pioneer Research on the Atom: The Life Story of Frederick Soddy (London: New World, 1958), 83–84; Lawrence Badash, “Radium, Radioactivity, and the Popularity of Scientific Discovery,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 122, no. 3 (June 9, 1978): 145–54; Thaddeus J. Trenn, The Self-Splitting Atom: The History of the Rutherford-Soddy Collaboration (London: Taylor and Francis, 1977), 42, 58–60, 111–17.

  10. EXTREME PARENTING

  [>] “steering their children toward things the parents have chosen”: Ellen Winner, telephone interview with the author, January 14, 2014. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to Ellen Winner are from this interview.

  [>] “that’s the hardest one to get right”: David Henry Feldman, telephone interview with the author, January 14, 2014. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to David Henry Feldman are from this interview.

  [>] “notice what they’re picking up on”: Linda Brody, telephone interview with the author, January 21, 2014. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to Linda Brody are from this interview.

  [>] “a lot of different ways of looking at different things”: Dean Keith Simonton, quoted in Ann Hulbert, “The Prodigy Puzzle,” New York Times, November 20, 2005.

  [>] new psychological research suggests: Laurence Steinberg, Age of Opportunity: Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014).

  11. ACCELERATING TOWARD BIG SCIENCE

  [>] “There are critical times”: Barbara A. Kerr, ed., Encyclopedia of Giftedness, Creativity, and Talent (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2009).

  [>] “it does a bright child no favors”: Barbara Kerr, telephone interview with the author, January 22, 2014. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to Barbara Kerr are from this interview.

  [>] trained in identifying and supporting gifted and talented students: Editorial Board, “Even Gifted Students Can’t Keep Up,” New York Times, December 14, 2013.

  [>] achieved higher levels of mastery as adults: Rena F. Subotnik, Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, and Frank C. Worrell, “Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education: A Proposed Direction Forward Based on Psychological Science,” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 12, no. 1 (2011): 3–54.

  [>] one or both parents in a scientific field: Rena F. Subotnik et al., “Specialized Public High Schools of Science, Mathematics, and Technology and the STEM Pipeline: What Do We Know Now and What Will We Know in 5 Years?,” Roeper Review 32, no. 1 (2009): 7–16.

  [>] “Sons, obey your fathers”: Homer Hickam, Rocket Boys (New York: Dell, 1999), 104–6.

  12. HEAVY WATER

  [>] “work hard to learn more and get smarter”: Carol Dweck, telephone interview with the author, January 27, 2014. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to Carol Dweck
are from this interview.

  [>] poll of 143 creativity researchers: Robert J. Sternberg, Handbook of Creativity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

  14. BRINGING THE STARS DOWN TO EARTH

  [>] “and preferably a lot sooner”: Steven Cowley, telephone interview with the author, November 8, 2012. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to Steven Cowley are from this interview.

  [>]“making an Apollo-like commitment?”: Ralf Kaiser, interview with the author, San Diego, October 12, 2012. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to Ralf Kaiser are from this interview.

  [>] “Positive images of the future”: E. Paul Torrance, “The Importance of Falling in Love with ‘Something,’” Creative Child and Adult Quarterly 8 (1983): 72–78.

  [>] boost both cognitive efficiency and overall productivity: Harry Alder, CQ: Boost Your Creative Intelligence: Powerful Ways to Improve Your Creativity Quotient (Philadelphia: Kogan Page, 2002); Jing Zho and Christina E. Shalley, “Research on Employee Creativity: A Critical Review and Directions for Further Research,” Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management 22 (2003): 165–217.

  [>] “went down a road a more experienced person wouldn’t have”: Anthony Fauci, telephone interview with the author, January 5, 2015. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes attributed to Anthony Fauci are from this interview.