Michigan Teen Creates Fusion Device

Josh Lindenmuth writes "The Detroit Free Press is reporting that Thiago Olson, a 17 year old Michigan teen, was able to create a small fusion device in his parents' basement. The machine uses a 40,000 volt charge and deuterium gas to create the small reaction, which he says looks like a 'small intense ball of energy.' The teen's fusion device is obviously not a self-sustaining reactor, but it still shows how fusion technology is becoming more accessible. Hopefully this points to a future where large scale fusion reactors are both economical and widely used."

What's up with Michigan?

[Quixote]

What is there in the water in Michigan? A few years ago a teen in Michigan created a nuclear fission reactor [amazon.com]; now this guy one ups him and creates fusion ?

Re:What's up with Michigan?

[Anonymous Coward]

What is there in the water in Michigan?

Deuterium, apparently.

Re:What's up with Michigan?

[Tumbleweed]

>> What is there in the water in Michigan?

> Deuterium, apparently.

*whoa* Heavy.

Becoming?

[taustin]

Becoming more accessible? Electrostatic fusion was first demonstrated in the 20s.

Re:Becoming?

[inviolet]

[...] the first farnsworth fusors weren't built 'till ~1960....

What, did the professor travel back in time 1050 years in order to plant a research seed?

Farnsworth: "Good news, everybody! Today we go on a one-way trip back through TIME to stimulate the development of nuclear fusion!"
Everybody: *sigh*
Bender: "Do they have money in the past?"
Farnsworth: "Yes. And they carelessly transport it in pockets, wallets, and purses."
Bender: "I'm in." [burps and roars fire out of his mouth]
Leela: "But professor, won't we be stuck in the past, only to live out the rest of our lives in the gruesomely primitive twentieth century?"
Farnsworth: "Well, there is definitely a very slim chance that someone in the twentieth century will invent the electrostatic fusion device needed to power my Time ReturnoWhatsit to send us back home. Perhaps one of the local nerds will invent one in his parents' basement."
Fry: "Yeah right. When I was in the twentieth century, I spent all of *my* time drinking beer, watching TV, and trying to pick up chicks."
Amy: "That's *still* what you do here in the *thirtieth* century."
Fry: "Oh yeah."
Bender: "We're boned."

Re:

[ConceptJunkie]

Actually, it was Philo Farnsworth of "inventing television" fame... although maybe the Professor did that too.

Deuterium?

[Wavicle]

How does a 17 year old come by deuterium? I mean the bush administration has a fit when Iran tries to buy some, and in this country you don't even have to be 18 to get it?

I'm lost.

Re:

[taustin]

Dueterium is present in all water, and can be refined fairly easily with electrolysis. All that's needed is some electricity and some fairly common instruments.

Re:

[petrus4]

I am genuinely greatly encouraged to see that there still are some genuine nerds (the term is not meant perjoritively in this context at all, so please do not take it as such) writing to Slashdot. Given the seemingly unending torrent of peurile, juvenile drivel that seems to have inundated the site recently, I badly needed such an event in order to restore my faith in it.

Thank you.

Hydrogen, yes; Deuterium, no.

[Kadin2048]

I think you're confusing deuterium with plain old hydrogen. You can extract hydrogen from water with electrolysis, but separating the deuterium (representing a vanishingly small percentage of the liberated hydrogen) from that would still be, to put it mildly, less than trivial.

IIRC, commercial heavy water plants do something that takes advantage of the slight difference in boiling point between D2O and H2O, and do a very delicate fractional distillation, over and over and over. The energy involved to do it is pretty immense, and it would be tough to do except under very carefully controlled conditions. Hydrogen sulfide may also be involved at some point in the process, as well, at least according to this WP article [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[Metex]

Forgot which chemistry book but if you dont care about have an extreamly pure source of deuterium 99.9% and up you just need to do electrolysis of something around 30 L for 1 ml of deuterium for a 95% pure deuterium water. I really wish I could give you the source with the exsact number but I have 8 more hours of homework ahead of me.

You are joking, aren't you?

[Flying pig]

Because somebody modded this informative. Anybody with a flame, a flask, infinite quantities of energy and infinite patience might be able to get some modestly concentrated heavy water this way, but it is going to be groaningly slow. Which is why the usual method requires differential electrolysis.

Alternatively, he might have bought a small quantity from a scientific supplier. Even the Government is going to realise, especially if his teachers wrote in, that the size of fusion bomb you can build with a couple of grammes of heavy water and the tritium from a beta light is less of a threat to the US than one NRA member with a hangover and a grudge against his ex-wife.

Re:

[ResidntGeek]

I know it's difficult. I was speaking of possibilities, not practicalities. I probably should have clarified that. I was responding to a poster who seemed to think the method was electrolysis of plain water.

Re:You are joking, aren't you?

[Jekler]

That's just low. Most NRA members are responsible adults who just want the right to bear arms and protect themselves and their families. They're not crazy gun-toting lunatics with hair-trigger rifles and bad tempers.

Hahaha, just kidding, yes they are.

OT: NRA

[Captain Sarcastic]

I know this is off-topic, but when I hear people refer to the NRA as overheated and overpoliticized gun owners, I sigh, and think, "They didn't used to be...."

I remember when I was in Boy Scouts during the 1970's and I took the dreaded "Rifle and Shotgun" merit badge.

Back then, the NRA was a gun safety and training organization. They struck everyone as being straight-forward and calm, more interested in making sure that people knew how to prevent gun accidents and how to responsibly own firearms.

Then things changed, and they transformed themselves into a political organization - and now they're either seen as "the safeguard of the American way" or "crazy gun-toting fascists," depending on whose overheated rhetoric was heard last.

Perhaps this should be seen as a warning to other groups - once you enter the political fray, you become a political animal. Or in the words of the Punisher, "The means always screws up the ends."

Re:OT: NRA

[BenEnglishAtHome]

I know this is off-topic, but when I hear people refer to the NRA as overheated and overpoliticized gun owners, I sigh, and think, "They didn't used to be...."

Relatively speaking, they still aren't.

Every time someone makes a point that the NRA is extreme, I like to point out that to many gun owners the NRA is a bunch of pussies. Compare them to The Second Amendment Foundation or Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. (I'm at work, so filtering prevents me from visiting their sites to gather URLs.) By that measure, the NRA is the voice of reason.

Personally, I take a middle tack. The NRA is the only gun rights organization big enough to make a difference on a national scale, so I support them. However, they have majorly screwed up in more ways than I can count. First, there's PR. Back in the day (until the late 1980s) the NRA was the national governing body for international shooting sports. That meant that the road to the Olympics went through the NRA. The people that worked that program weren't political animals and they failed to defend their turf; the NRA gave up NGB status and let is slide over to U.S. Shooting. That was the single stupidest PR mistake I've ever seen. Almost no one can argue against gun ownership for the purpose of winning Olympic medals, yet the NRA can no longer use that as an example. Way back in the day, it was possible for an NRA rep to hold up a S&W M52 target pistol and say "This is the pistol that Ruby Fox used to win a silver at the L.A. Olympics. We are the organization that provided the infrastructure for that to happen. The assault rifle bill before Congress would ban this gun, thus proving that gun control is a bad thing." (Yes, the original Matzenbaum assault rifle bill, the grandaddy of all that sort of legislation, would have outlawed as "assault rifles" nearly all semiautomatic pistols and shotguns as well as rifles.) The NRA can no longer stand up and say they represent potential Olympians. I'm still shocked that they don't seem to realize what a powerful PR tool they lost when they gave up sanctioning authority.

Another PR error? Here's one, drawn from your own post. You say the NRA has changed. It hasn't. The NRA is still a competition, safety, conservation, and training outfit. All the political stuff belongs to the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action. But does the general public realize that the organization that teaches Boy Scouts and the organization that lobbies Congress are two different things? Not really. The NRA has failed to differentiate, thus contaminating their functions that nearly anyone would agree are wholesome with the stench of their political activities. That's bad PR and I see no way to correct it.

Second, they have wussed out at any number of innopportune times. Check the website of any "NRA watchdog" and you'll find instances when they backed down instead of going for the jugular, usually in the name of preserving future relationships. The earliest I can remember was the so-called "cop killer" bullets, a fiction dreamed up by anti-gun types that the NRA caved on. Now, the notion that there are teflon-coated pistol bullets out there that magically slide through bulletproof vests (and that those objects only exist because the NRA wants them to exist) is ingrained in the minds of most people who don't know any better. It's just crazy. Just this last week, in that Law & Order episode where the escaped con kills all the little schoolgirls, there was an obviously dubbed line thrown in about the bad guy having obtained a .45 with "teflon bullets." Argh! That kind of willful ignorance makes me crazy; if the NRA had done a better job back when they had the chance, such ignorance wouldn't be so common.

Third, they've simply failed far too many times. How in the bloody hell did the machine gun ban get passed? I've seen the video of the voice vote. It wasn't even close to passage, yet the Speaker simply pronounced it p

Re:

[djh101010]

Back then, the NRA was a gun safety and training organization. They struck everyone as being straight-forward and calm, more interested in making sure that people knew how to prevent gun accidents and how to responsibly own firearms. Then things changed, and they transformed themselves into a political organization

Thing is, the NRA _still is_ that gun safety and training organization. Unfortunately, clueless legislators have made it necessary for us to also worry about the real risk of legislation mak

Re:Deuterium?

[hung_himself]

Is actually reading the wikipedia too much to ask?

Two liquids that close in vapor pressure are very difficult to separate (and requires expensive distillation equipment according to the wiki). As for the grandparent - electrolysis would work because the strength of the HO and DO bonds are different though according to the wiki this is not efficient either. But the principle is the same - unlike for larger isotopes which chemically are essentially identical (and require centrifuges to separate by density), hydrogen isotopes have different chemical properties that can be exploited in rates of reactions and one of these is given in the wikipedia for those interested.

BTW as isotopes go it is very cheap to just buy heavy water (probably because it is relatively easy to obtain) and that is probably the source for this guy's experiment.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Just order it from any gas supplier. They deliver. It's not radioactive.

http://www.airgas.com/browse/product_list.aspx?cat ID=90&Keyword=deuterium [airgas.com]

Re:

[RsG]

Not only is it not radioactive, it also isn't useful in non-thermonuclear fission weapons AFAIK. For a straight A-bomb, you really need enriched Uranium and/or Plutonium, but you have no need for Deuterium. Small quantities of Tritium can also be used in some designs, but I think that's a little beyond where Iran is today. It's only H-bombs that use Deuterium, and they're a lot more advanced than what we're talking about here.

I don't know what source the GP has for the US "having a fit" over Iranian Deut

Re:Deuterium?

[norton_I]

I don't believe the US is worried about Iran having deuterium exactly, but the US is worried about Iran building heavy water (D20) moderated reactors. D20 is used in reactor designs that need a low neutron capture cross section, including ones used to breed plutonium. Note that heavy water reactors may also be used simply for power generation with unenriched uranium.

Re:

[__aaclcg7560]

You just tell the government officials that you're researching for the next Star Trek movie and drop a lot of hints on how wonderful the movie will be.

Re:

[cinexero]

It's pretty easy to come by deuterium actually. You simply electrolyze heavy water. See this website http://www.rtftechnologies.org/physics/deuterium-e lectrolysis.htm [rtftechnologies.org] for an example of heavy water electrolysis. He's a college student that has done much much more, check out HIS fusion reactor[s] http://www.rtftechnologies.org/physics/ [rtftechnologies.org].

Re:Deuterium?

[imsabbel]

You can buy D2O, for example from sigmal aldrich, for moderate prices, compared to the rest of the equipment. I dunno the actual price, but i bougt 100ml high purity ND4OD, obviously harder to make, for 150$ for 50ml, so i guess 95% grade D2O schould be 50% for 100ml.

Its a non hazard material, non radiative, and WAY to common for any kind of sale restriction to make any sense.

Isotopic purification is dead easy if the weight ratio is 2:1, vs for example 235:239...

Re:

[geekoid]

I buy my D20 at the hobby store....

Re:

[MsWillow]

http://www.unitednuclear.com/ [unitednuclear.com]

'Nuff said?

Re:

[RuBLed]

well, just remember to purge the exhaust manifolds afterwards, check the deutrium reserve levels and recalibrate the deflector dish. (the latter one is extremely necessary)

Re:

[BadAnalogyGuy]

And when that fails, reverse polarity on the ion drives and switch to impulse while using the shields to create a negative graviton balance. It'll take split second timing, but it's our only chance.

Site is down, so no videos for now

[BadAnalogyGuy]

His site: http://fusor.net/board/view.php?site=fusor&bn=fuso r_images&key=1150855195 [fusor.net]

Can anyone independently verify that fusion is actually occurring here? Is he really creating Helium in the chamber?

Re:

[neuro.slug]

His ISP is going to need that ball of fusion to power their server after the /.ing you brought upon it.

Re:Site is down, so no videos for now

[LoveMuscle]

Fusion is easy to verify: Deuterium-Deuterium fusion spits out a proton at a well know energy level (3ish MeV) and a tritium atom.
Deuterium-Tritium fusion spits out a neutron at a well know enegery level (14ish MeV), and a helium. With the appropriate gear either the proton or the neutron are easy to spot/measure.
 

either that

[macadamia_harold]

Hopefully this points to a future where large scale fusion reactors are both economical and widely used.

Either that, or it points to a future where large scale fusion reactors are widely used in parents' basements.

He initially wanted to create a hyperbolic chamber

[Anonymous Coward]

but his mother wouldn't let him. Quite right too. There's way too much unjustified exaggeration these days. Far more dangerous than a glowing ball of energy.

The hyperbolic chamber

[ishmaelflood]

From TFA his mother wouldn't let him build a hyperbolic chamber.

Definition of hyperbolic

exaggerated: enlarged beyond truth or reasonableness; "had an exaggerated (or inflated) opinion of himself"; "a hyperbolic style"

Re:

[imsabbel]

Obviously your definition is rather narrow, or you are mathematically uneducated.

Neutrons

[Wyatt Earp]

What did he use to shield the neutrons or did he just suck them up?

Re:Neutrons

[julesh]

This is what I want to know. If fusion had occurred (and I doubt it, but still...) then there would have been a burst of neutrons. If he was near enough to the experiment to see a ball of plasma then he's very lucky to be alive.

According to the wikipedia article [wikipedia.org], "neutron emissions can present a hazard if voltages above 40 kilovolts are used". Sounds like the kid was cutting it fairly close, but should have been reasonably safe. It sounds as though the associated X-ray emissions are actually more problematic.

How do we know it's fusion?

[UnHolier than ever]

Personally, if I put a dilute gas in a vacuum chamber, apply a voltage and see a small ball of fire, I think plasma. Why is this not just a plasma? How do we know it's fusion?

And what is a "hyperbolic chamber"???????

Note: creating a plasma at 17 years old in a garage would still be very cool. Maybe not slashdot-front-page cool, but still cool.

Re:How do we know it's fusion?

[csnydermvpsoft]

Note: creating a plasma at 17 years old in a garage would still be very cool. Maybe not slashdot-front-page cool, but still cool.

He didn't do it in a garage, though - he created plasma in his parents' basement, which makes it more relevant to Slashdot readers.

The lightssss

[Rogerborg]

It burnsss ussss.

Mommy never lies!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

See. This is a very bright kid. His mother says so. By 5 he was playing chemistry sets, and by 9 was changing batteries.

FOR FUCK SAKES PEOPLE: I know many kids, including myself & my own two kids who did simple chemistry set stuff at less than 5 and tasks more complex than changing batteries in cars long before 9, and explosives etc before ten.

I doubt this is real fusion & will remain sceptical until somebody in a white lab coat and thick glasses confirms it. Sorry mom, your opinion doesn't count.

Re:

[Bueller_007]

This is a hyperbolic chamber: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30990 [theonion.com]

frightening

[mwanaheri]

OK, congrats that this seems to have worked. But a teen experimenting at home with 40.000 volt and Deuterium - am I the only one who thinks this is frightening?

Too easily frightened.

[Kadin2048]

Any kid who ever built a Van De Graff generator has played with far more than 40kV... I mean, that's only a few centimeters worth of spark at STP. If you've ever gotten 3-4" sparks in dry air, you're playing with way higher voltage than that.

Re:

[tttonyyy]

Indeed, when I was a teen, I built Tesla coils. The spark gap alone peaked at ~14kV with a lot of energy. And they routinely produced > 1MV (calculated) from the top caps.

I did this in the back garden (hammering a steel pole into the lawn gives a good earth point). It seems the neighbours on one side didn't like or understand my odd looking machines, because they moved out shortly afterwards. Admittedly it interfered with every electric system in the neighbourhood, and there was a time whe I was expe

Re:

[HuguesT]

The sex ratio of radiation workers' offsprings is often altered, in favour of girls.

You can read this [nih.gov] for example. Other studies show similar effects on (nuclear) submariners, etc.

Re:frightening

[MBC1977]

Perhaps in today's 'lets assume every teenager who is not out trying to score nookie, or hang at the mall' society. But some of us do remember a time when experimentation was encouraged and nurtured. To be honest, I'll be surprised if some state or gov agency doesn't pop by his house and have a little chat or worse the next time he wants to fly any where, his name 'magically' now appears on the no-fly lists.

What's really sad is that people are so frightened, that they would willingly give up personal freedoms and stifle overly creative children for some ill-perception of national security.

Re:frightening

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

I get the impression it's quite the reverse. At least here it is.

The people who are afraid of overly performing students (there are a lot of them actually) are not the police, or national security or any such people but :
1) the teachers (most are a) quite dumb b) don't like to be challenged when they screw up a theory c) don't really know the subject)
2) fellow students (we've all watched the "nerd" movies)

Re:frightening

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. First he's playing with fusion, the next thing you know, he's building terrorist bombs! Let's ban Deuterium right quick "for the children". (End sarcasm)

Your comment is symptomatic of a larger problem in society. We're scared of our own shadows. "Oooooh the evil scary nukular stuff is in the hands of the teens! Run for your life!!!" - Is this even slightly rational? He can't hurt anyone with electrostatic confined fusion (if you could weaponize that, the powers that be would have done so already). If he fries himself with X-rays or high voltage, then that's a risk he took for himself; his parents may have a say in what risks he exposes himself to, but it's not my concern or yours.

Personally, I'm far more worried about what a government will do when given powerful toys than I am about what a lone teenager will.

Fusor

[deischi]

Sounds like a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor [wikipedia.org]
so really nothing new.

Future of Fusion

[Yahma]

Hopefully this points to a future where large scale fusion reactors are both economical and widely used.

I'm sorry... but while this teenagers work is certainly commendable and nothing to sneeze at (in fact, Large engineering firms such as Siemens [siemens.de] seem to take an interest in him). His work does nothing to further research in the field. Non-sustaining fusion reactors have been around for decades, and its been widely known how to build one for at least 20 years. For most people, the cost is the limiting factor. Why would you want to spend $50k-100k on something that uses more energy than it produces?

Now when we finally get a sustainable fusion reaction that produces more energy that it uses, that would be something to write about!

Yahma
ProxyStorm [proxystorm.com] - An apache based anonymous proxy service.

Re:

[CmdrGravy]

"Now when we finally get a sustainable fusion reaction that produces more energy that it uses, that would be something to write about!"

I agree and I think the more 17 year olds we have building stuff like this the closer we will come to realising that goal. Who knows maybe one of them will make a mistake and discover something unexpectedly useful, the less people you have experimenting the less likely you'll discover anything new.

Re:

[Rogerborg]

It makes you a 'tard. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the statement "a sustainable fusion reaction that produces more energy that it uses", apart from the typo. Now, put the inhaler down, and repeat after me: I will not interrupt when grown-ups are speaking.

Fusion is no big deal!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor [wikipedia.org] . They are no big deal! Effectively it is like a vacuum tube, where an electrical charge is used to accelerate D+ ions until they smack into each other. No biggie! The energy levels needed for fusion are very small and can be achieved in a hand-held device. These fusors are used as laboratory neutron sources.

So if fusion is so easy, and if it's such a great power source, why aren't we using it right now to generate power? The Fusor device can easily make fusion happen but, for various reasons, it is not energy-positive fusion. The energy you get out of it cannot be capture in a useful way to get more energy than was put into it. So they're great for neutrons but not much else.

If someone could figure out a design that would be energy-positive then we would have something amazing but there's nothing there for that right now.

kaboom!

[Anonymous Coward]

dont forget to keep Dee Dee out of lab..

Really? Me too!

[Itsallmyfault]

I'm in the process of this very thing... on a much larger scale... in my dining roo+++NO CARRIER

I love bylines!

[M0b1u5]

I love bylines! They're so incriminating.

Like GINA DAMRON, the reporter who doesn't listen, and can not know the difference between a "Hyperbaric Chamber" and a [sic] Hyperbolic Chamber, which sounds oddly shaped, but unremarkable.

Good on you Gina, keep up that keen reporting.

I'm looking forward to your report on the Frictional Distillation process.

Re:I love bylines!

[Control Group]

Hyperbolic Chamber, which sounds oddly shaped, but unremarkable

Are you kidding? I made a Hyperbolic Chamber, and it's the greatest thing ever! Its better than a baseball player batting TWO thousand!! No one has ever even imagined anything as phenomenally revolutionary as my Hyperbolic Chamber!!! I can guarantee that my Hperbolic Chamber will solve world hunger and instantiate world peace!!!! It's as hot as the center of the sun, and as cool as intergalactic space!!!!!

Relevant science fiction story:

[The Master Control P]

Dechlorinating the Moderator [antipope.org] by Charles Stross. Check out Scratch Monkey & Accelerando while you're there, too.

Amazed that no one's posted this yet in a story about amateur physics ;)

Oh, crap, about the domain name...

[The Master Control P]

Forgot... No, it's not an anti-catholic site. It's supposed to be "autopope" but that got messed up in Internet pre-history.

Commendable.

[tute666]

The FBI hasn't fallen on him like a ton of rectangular building blocks yet?

If I had a nickle...

[AK Marc]

If I had a nickle every time I created fusion, well, I'd still be broke.

Well done

[jandersen]

A quick look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farnsworth-Hirsch_Fus or [wikipedia.org] reveals that this is a fairly simply, but clever experiment. He is a bright kid, and one day he'll most likely become a physicist. Or perhaps not - whereas the device is simple enough to build, I haven't been able to find a place to buy deuterium, unless you want to talk to a guy called Al (last name of 'Qaeda').

Re:Well done

[Elminst]

I haven't been able to find a place to buy deuterium, unless you want to talk to a guy called Al (last name of 'Qaeda').

Put away the fear-mongering, and learn to use Google. Deuterium is easily obtained from many places for *gasp!* science experiments.
http://unitednuclear.com/hw.htm [unitednuclear.com]
http://www.isotope.com/cil/products/displayproduct .cfm?prod_id=5267 [isotope.com]
And the world's leading "producer" of Deuterium is Canada.

Points for technical ability, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, let's write a story that make it look like he "creates" a standard Fanrnsworth-Hirsch Fusor (built for science fair projects, low level neutron sources, and just shits & grins for 50 years) and make the kid look like a genius.

Technical skill? Yes. Advanced knowledge? Yes.

But primarily, ability to follow directions available everywhere [wikipedia.org]? Yes.

He may very well be a genius, but it is as likely that he's a genius at self-promotion as anything. There are many high-quality science projects he could have done, but add the words "nuclear" and "fusion" and you attract a lot of media attention. He'll make a good string theorist...

JD

Kick ass

[phasm42]

While there are a lot of comments about this being a well-known device for fusion, it seems the practical application of this is a neutron source. The experience of actually building the machine is invaluable. If you've ever built something complex, you know that simply knowing about how something is built and actually having built it are very different things. By building, he's likely gained a lot of practical knowledge that can be applied to future projects. He could describe the process, drawing from his own experience instead of just what he's read.

Newsorthy? Not necessarily, but that's no reason to make it seem like what he's done is without merit.

Re:Been done before

[arivanov]

If he really managed it, the real news will be when he manages to procreate. Those 14KeV fusion neutrons play very interesting games with DNA. That is if he really managed to get any fusion to succeed which I doubt.

Re:

[Madman]

He's never gonna get laid anyway, so why should he worry about it?

Re:Been done before

[buswolley]

And people keep telling us that USA kids don't do science. Shit.

Re:

[kabocox]

And people keep telling us that USA kids don't do science. Shit.

Shh, you aren't allowed to tell anyone outside the US our secret. We've never stopped doing science. It's just that this kid won't be remembered and used as an example to follow by the student body. That sports team that once made it to state or actually won at state; those guys the teachers and students can name most of them off the top of their head. We still have lots of kids that do science and think that its fun, but you'll hardly hear abo

Re:Been done before

[cptgrudge]

Making a fusion reactor [brian-mcdermott.com] is relatively easy, albeit somewhat dangerous, like you said.

From here [brian-mcdermott.com]:

As with any nuclear-related project, safety must be taken into consideration.

[...]

* Radiation; this should be the least of your worries until about 15,000 volts of acceleration potential. At this point, x-rays start to emanate from viewports due to electron and ion bombardment of metals in the chamber. Always use a camera or mirror to peer into the viewport. X-rays can cause burns and lead to cancer. Above 40,000 volts, x-rays will start to come through the stainless steel chamber walls. At this point, you will need to use lead shielding. Neutron radiation is the most dangerous form of radiation known to man, but the fusor does not put out enough of it to be dangerous until about 45,000 volts. It can easily be shielded with water, wax or plastic. You can also minimize your exposure by standing well away from the fusor, or by operating it for only 20 minutes per week.

More safety info [kronjaeger.com].

Really, it's that pesky part where we try to actually make it produce energy and break even that is stumping us right now.

Re:Been done before

[thekm]

"This has been replicated over 300 times. Maybe 500. Old news"

this is the statement of an asshole. Why make an almost asinine comment like this?... a 17 year old applied himself in a very unsual way that shows intelligence, aptitude, application, and determination. Researched, developed and built a remarkable machine. Sure, it's been demonstrated since the 20's, but you probably read about it in a book at best. Or looked up on wikipedia that it was first done in the 20's.

Most people just read about things. Others do things. Knowing things and not doing is borderline redundant. Hearing of something being done for a long time and never even remotely applying yourself even within 1%, and then criticising and reducing the absolutely remarkable efforts of others is borderline criminal. Get a life, but more importantly, get some perspective.

I'd love to see a picture of your fusion machine, or anything even remotely demonstrating the independent application of intelligence. People that make these kinds of comments rarely partake in anything of the kind.

Re:

[Skrynesaver]

Bizarrely enough, not only are they funding it (along with the rest of the developed world), they will sign the consortium agreement today [iter.org].

Re:What colour is energy?

[__aaclcg7560]

Take the back cover off of a really old TV and tap the tip of a screwdriver across the back circuit of the picture tube. A ball of energy should melt the tip of the screwdriver and/or throw you back 20 feet and/or turn your hair white.

Re:

[k33l0r]

I was thinking that perhaps it is that sort of glowing blue that you get in movies. Or perhaps the glowing green that gets associated with radiation?

Re:What colour is energy?

[Dorceon]

Or perhaps the glowing red that gets associated with COMMUNISM!

MY DEATH RAY!

[Philip K Dickhead]

"Someday, I'll build a death-ray! Then they'll all be sorry they laughed at me!

Stupid coach."

Re:What colour is energy?

[PontifexPrimus]

A ball of energy should melt the tip of the screwdriver and/or throw you back 20 feet and/or turn your hair white.

...and/or give you television-related superpowers (The Amazing Remote-Man(TM)? The Human Static(TM)? The Homeshopper(TM)?).

Re:

[Barny]

Hrmm, that gives me some great ideas for RP city of villains characters ^_^

THIS IS AN OLD FARNSWORTH FUSOR!

[justanyone]

This is a Farnsworth Fusor. See Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor/ [wikipedia.org] for info on this type of device, which is VERY OLD, reasonably well-characterized, and most definitely NOT an energy-generation device.

Fusors use far more power than they generate. The idea is a pair of spherical grids charged to 50K volts differential. Deuterium gas is a welding supply item. Gas hits the outer grid, ionizes, and is propelled at ultra-high speed to the exact center of the grid.

The drawback is the inefficiencies: There is no known design (and some theoretical work saying it is impossible to a achieve such a design) which does not have significant heat losses to impacts of the gas on the inner grid. This generates random gas, which impedes the movement of the ions, etc.

It is also known as Electrostatic fusion.

Re:

[smilindog2000]

Check out recent developments [wikipedia.org] in Farnsworth rectors at the same site you posted. If true, we may be a lot closer to real fusion reactors than people think.

Neutron source

[CustomDesigned]

The main industrial use of the Farnsworth Fusor is as a neutron source [wikipedia.org]. Anyone trying this at home needs to understand that the neutron flux near the reactor can be deadly. (Wikipedia says amateur Fusors generate about 3x10^5 neutrons / sec.) Fortunately, they escape in all directions, so the density falls with the square of the distance. Just don't get too close while it's running. It's a good idea to have a detector for ionizing radiation and be familiar with exposure levels humans can tolerate. (Any good links?) Remember the neutron bomb? Killed people - not things.

Re:

[tacocat]

I'll bet the Department of Homeland Security is giving him his fifteen minutes...

Capacitors

[DeadCatX2]

TVs have very dangerous capacitors. The function of capacitors that you unhappily discovered is something like a temporary battery.

See, a real battery can only push so much energy out per second (I think batteries are usually defined in milliamp hours (mAh)). So what you do is you start pushing charge (electrons) onto a capacitor, and then when you need a real big quick burst of energy (like, say, to shoot an electron at a TV screen) the cap can give you that high amount of current or voltage very quickly.

Another use is to smooth power signals. You're getting sent AC voltage in the wall, which oscillates above and below zero volts. This gets rectified at the home so that it's either above or at 0 volts. Then, this gets filtered through a series of capacitors (and lots of other stuff, too; Zener diodes FTW) to provide (more) consistent voltage, instead of a rising and falling voltage. In essence, it's acting as a battery for us while the voltage is lower than what the circuit needs.

Capacitors are also very important in analog filters and a lot of other Electrical Engineering voodoo.

Re:Capacitors

[0x0000]

TVs have very dangerous capacitors.

There is no such thing as a "safe" capacitor! They are filled with SMOKE and that smoke is DEADLY. ALWAYS let the smoke out of the capacitors before attempting to handle them! This should only be done by PROFESSIONALS. Do NOT try this at home.

Always assume a CAPACITOR is holding a charge. And: Capacitors don't kill people, it's the circuit of which the person is a part that is dangerous...

Re:

[idonthack]

Modded Insightful? I guess it's not just intelligent people getting mod points.

Re:

[indifferent children]

Capacitors don't kill people, it's the circuit ...

Capacitors don't kill people. Capacitor manufacturers kill people. Capacitors are just the tool they use to do it.

Re:

[Eunuchswear]

No you don't, it's Chuck Norris that kills people [chucknorrisfacts.com]

Re:

[idontgno]

Wow.

The only capacitor horror story I have involves an ancient PC AT type computer and a serial port ISA card. I plugged the card into the PC (correctly--antistatic procedures, power off, all that jazz) and powered up the system.

My first thought was "Oh, how nice, they even have a neon pilot lamp on the card to let you know it has power."

My second thought was "Wait? NEON? No way..."

My third thought was "I didn't know tantalum capacitors [wikipedia.org] would glow bright orange."

My fourth thought was a continuation of the

Re:

[Creepy]

yeah, yeah, rectifying mumbo-jumbo - nobody wants to hear about that. What you want to do is take one of those really big capacitors in an old TV, unsolder the leads and solder them in backwards. Then hook up the power.

See, it's simple - Slashdot readers want to see shrapnel - and lots of it, not how to safely do stuff with electricity. Keep your education stuff in the schools.

...I'm not sure....

[shaneh0]

I'm not sure what alpha male you've been spying on in the changing room, but even with my limited knowledge of other men's packages, I can safely say that there's only supposed to be ONE "wrinkled brown sack." If yours come individually wrapped you should consider yourself a frea...unique snowflake.

Re:

[massivefoot]

If I understand correctly he isn't really innovating in the sense that the experiment is new or anything. But presumably he's done it on a relatively tight budget, and it could get other kids interested in science. Wish I'd had the get up and go to try and build a fusion reactor when I was 17!

Re:

[o'reor]

Dear sir,

I actually liked your kind of flaimebait. Could you please give us some more ?

Re:

[macadamia_harold]

I would, but it's hard to type with electrodes attached to my testicles. Please try again later!

Re:Biggest question

[oddeirik]

You can get Deuterium Oxide from http://www.unitednuclear.com/chem.htm [unitednuclear.com] (and probably many other chemical suppliers) from which you can make deuterium gas.

Re:

[Attaturk]

OK if the word deuterium sounds too much like a physics lesson for you, does heavy water [wikipedia.org] sound any friendlier? ;-)

In case skipping down a couple of paragraphs is also too 'lessony' here's the bit you're after:

Thus, it would take a week of drinking nothing but pure heavy water for a human to begin to feel ill, and 10 days to 2 weeks (depending on water intake) for severe poisoning and death.

The kid can obtain the stuff because he's not afraid of physics lessons. =P

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a by-product of charcoal filtered 'Unobtainium' - I hear the rus'kies have it for sale by the kilo...

Re:

[Kangburra]

Core [imdb.com], really?!

Re:Biggest question

[crankyspice]

Where did he get the Deuterium from?

It's like this: You take two frisbies, a remote control toy truck, and a bottle of shampoo, and wait for a stormy night...

Re:

[RsG]

Please do some basic fact checking before commenting. This thing is a Farnsworth-Hirsch Fusor. The design is common knowledge, decades old and is proven to work. No pseudo science involved, period. Your comment would have potentially made sense if we were talking cold fusion, or if the kid had claimed to have made a toroidal reactor.

Moreover, differentiating between a nuclear reaction and a chemical one is easy; the former is going to give off some highly recognizable forms of radiation (X-rays are spec