12-Year-Old Boy Reportedly Builds A Nuclear Fusion Reactor (theguardian.com) 153
An anonymous reader quotes the Guardian:
An American 14-year-old has reportedly become the youngest known person in the world to create a successful nuclear reaction. The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, a hobbyist group, has recognised the achievement by Jackson Oswalt, from Memphis, Tennessee, when he was aged 12 in January 2018....
The enterprising teenager said he transformed an old playroom in his parents' house into a nuclear laboratory with $10,000 (£7,700) worth of equipment that uses 50,000 volts of electricity to heat deuterium gas and fuse the nuclei to release energy. "The start of the process was just learning about what other people had done with their fusion reactors," Jackson told Fox. "After that, I assembled a list of parts I needed. I got those parts off eBay primarily and then oftentimes the parts that I managed to scrounge off of eBay weren't exactly what I needed. So I'd have to modify them to be able to do what I needed to do for my project...."
[S]cientists are likely to remain sceptical until Oswalt's workings are subject to verification from an official organisation and are published in an academic journal. Still, the teenager may now have usurped the previous record holder, Taylor Wilson, who works in nuclear energy research after achieving fusion aged 14.
The enterprising teenager said he transformed an old playroom in his parents' house into a nuclear laboratory with $10,000 (£7,700) worth of equipment that uses 50,000 volts of electricity to heat deuterium gas and fuse the nuclei to release energy. "The start of the process was just learning about what other people had done with their fusion reactors," Jackson told Fox. "After that, I assembled a list of parts I needed. I got those parts off eBay primarily and then oftentimes the parts that I managed to scrounge off of eBay weren't exactly what I needed. So I'd have to modify them to be able to do what I needed to do for my project...."
[S]cientists are likely to remain sceptical until Oswalt's workings are subject to verification from an official organisation and are published in an academic journal. Still, the teenager may now have usurped the previous record holder, Taylor Wilson, who works in nuclear energy research after achieving fusion aged 14.
Who is Stoopider? (Score:1)
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Re: Who is Stoopider? (Score:2)
No, that would make it not a "sustainable reactor" - which nobody claimed it to be.
Re: Who is Stoopider? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the term "reactor" came from chemical engineering, meaning a vessel in which a *reaction* takes place. So in that sense, what was built was a "reactor".
In a nuclear fission context, it implies a device capable of supporting a sustained and controllable reaction, in which sense this is *not* a "reactor".
But by that criteria, there are no nuclear fusion reactors in the world. It's not unusual for fusion researchers to call fusion devices such as tokamaks or magnetic mirrors "reactors", even though they cannot sustain a reaction. So in that sense it *is* a "reactor".
It's less important what you call a thing as being clear what you mean, which of course in an age where most news sources have shed their science desks in favor of opinion journalism is a rare thing.
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This was a D-T generator. Commercially these may be bought for ~$125k, and are used as industrial neutron sources for radiography. Not really that hard anymore...
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Interesting to see how different media are reporting this, from the Weekly World News-worthy:
Teen builds working nuclear fusion reactor [foxnews.com]
to:
Boy, 12, said to have created nuclear reaction [theguardian.com]
by a media outlet with a science reporter who actually knows about science.
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AFAIK it DOES sustain a reaction. It just doesn't produce more energy than it consumes, so it's not a source of energy.
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No, it's you.
Teens do build fusors, look it up. Very doable.
Re:Who is Stoopider? (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. It doesn't even take $10,000 - you can build a fusor with less than $500 worth of second-hand equipment. Handy if you need a convenient neutron source, or a bad case of radiation poisoning, but not much else.
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Oh come on. Nobody even goes to raid smoke detectors for radioactive material, you can buy plutonium off the shelf and order deuterium oxide right from Canada. Pure do it yourself kit.
I'm pretty sure the do-it-yourself kit also includes radiation poisoning, shorter life span, and investigation by a nuclear regulatory agency since the persons involved would be glowing to the radiation detectors in pretty much any western city...especially since a simple radioactive dye will trip them.
Re:Who is Stoopider? (Score:5, Informative)
... you can buy plutonium off the shelf ...
Where? The only commercial source of plutonium I have ever heard of are ionization smoke detectors (like the KV-1) sold in the Soviet Union, but apparently not made in decades. These don't show up on eBay much (I check from time to time). List a source, or you are blowing smoke.
and order deuterium oxide right from Canada.
I don't know of a regular commercial Canadian source (isotope vendors usually don't sell to the public), do you? If so, list them here. I do know of a U.S. source though, United Nuclear, as far as I know this where all fusor makers get their material (and where I got mine).
I'm pretty sure the do-it-yourself kit also includes radiation poisoning, shorter life span, and investigation by a nuclear regulatory agency since the persons involved would be glowing to the radiation detectors in pretty much any western city...especially since a simple radioactive dye will trip them.
Not with a Farnsworth Fusor. These only put out a few million neutrons a second. Assuming a high performing unit with 10 million, that is 10,000,000 * 2.5 MeV * 1.6*10^-13 J/MeV = 4*10^-6 J/s. A rad is 0.01 J/kg of tissue, so a 50 kg kid would require 0.5 J to get a one rad whole body dose. If the actual absorption from the fusor were 10% of its emission (he isn't wrapped around it), then he would have to sit next to it for 2 weeks without a break to get to 1 rad exposure. Radiation poisoning (overt toxicity) sets in around 200 rads in a short period, no acute symptoms would show up if this is spread out over weeks, much less the 8 years of sitting next to the fusor he would need. He could get up to a 2000 rad lifetime exposure sitting next to it his whole life (80 years) but would never show radiation symptions. His cancer risk would be bumped a bit though.
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Radiation damage yes, setting off detectors no. (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure the do-it-yourself kit also includes radiation poisoning, shorter life span, and investigation by a nuclear regulatory agency since the persons involved would be glowing ...
Not with a Farnsworth Fusor. These only put out a few million neutrons a second.
So you don't get radiation poisoning and don't become (substantially) radioactive from the neutron flux.
But a Farsnworth-Hirsch or Hirsch-Meeks fusor puts out a LOT of X-rays, from loose electrons accelerated across tens of kV slamming into
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deuterium is in your tap water, another fun project for the enterprising high schooler
https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811... [osu.edu]
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... you can buy plutonium off the shelf ...
Where? The only commercial source of plutonium I have ever heard of are ionization smoke detectors (like the KV-1) sold in the Soviet Union, but apparently not made in decades.
Yes, back in 1985, plutonium was available at every corner drugstore, but in 2019 it’s a little hard to come by.
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... you can buy plutonium off the shelf ...
Where?
It's used in things like neutron howitzers, you can buy up to 1 Ci 239Pu as part of a 239PuBe source if you meet the requirements and fill out the paperwork.
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Q:Do you understand what a fusor is?
(A:No, no you don't)
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Q:Do you understand what a fusor is?
A: Assumptions just make you look stupid.
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So what? Plutonium isn't appreciably radioactive. Deutrium is much more so, but still a mere trickle compared to what you'd get feeding from feeding it into a $300 fusor.
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So what? Plutonium isn't appreciably radioactive. Deutrium is much more so, but still a mere trickle compared to what you'd get feeding from feeding it into a $300 fusor.
Deutrium isn't radioactive. You are thinking of Tritium which has a half-life of only 12.3 years which makes it quite radioactive even though the small size of the Tritium nucleus makes the energy per decay event quite small. And Plutonium is very radioactive with a half-life of only 24k years and a huge atomic number so a large amount of energy released per decay event. Its even more dangerous than Uranium as its also water soluble and also a poison. Also, d-t (deutrium-tritium) fusion releases neutron
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Quite so.
Only I think you're thinking of protium-boron fusion being aneutronic, aka the p-B11 reaction. I'm not clear that D-B fusion is noteworthy path, but even if it is, you'd still be dealing with neutron-radiating D-D side reactions. Those side reactions put a damper on a lot of the otherwise promising aneutronic reactions.
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you can build a fusor with less than $500 worth of second-hand equipment. Handy if you need a convenient neutron source, or a bad case of radiation poisoning, but not much else.
I think you'd have a hard job doing it for $500 unless you really REALLY knew what you were doing, that's a tight budget. I'd be surprised if you'd get anything like enough out of a $500 fusor to get radiation poisoning.
You'd get a pretty glow and a few neutrons though.
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I'd say you, for jumping to a conclusion about something you don't know anything about. That's kind of the definition of stupidity.
Creating a fusion reactor isn't particularly hard, and many, many people have done it. The cheap and easy fusor design doesn't produce usable energy, however, and that's why it's only used for research, or as a cheap Neutron source. The design goes back to the same guy who invented television, Philo T Farnsworth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
It's fine to not know about t
Hand in your nerd credentials (Score:1)
Here is Make magazine's article on "Learn How to Build a Nuclear Fusor":
https://makezine.com/projects/make-36-boards/nuclear-fusor/ [makezine.com]
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"I managed to achieve fusion with ice bags taped to my diffusion pump to cool it before January 19th at 3:38pm (my birthday/time)"
http://www.fusor.net/board/vie... [fusor.net]
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You for making noises without knowing shit.
What more proof do you need? (Score:2)
He aged two years in the last 13 months.
Re:What more proof do you need? (Score:5, Insightful)
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He aged two years in the last 13 months.
Well if his birthday was within 1 month of the event then he would have had 2 birthdays in the interim 13 months.
Superpowers (Score:3)
Clock Boy 2019 (Score:5, Funny)
Also, he said he built a time machine in his garage based on a 1976 Toyota Corolla. The only problem was he couldn't get it up to 88 mph.
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More to the point, he should've used a '72 Datsun [datsun1200.com]
Conversation (Score:4, Funny)
I can see the conversation.
"Hey Jackson, can you come out and play?"
"Not right now. I'm building a fusion reactor."
"Okay, maybe tomorrow."
This is a fusor- yes, it involves fusion. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is a fusor- yes, it involves fusion. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a bit less impressive when think about his parents buying $10,000 worth of equipment for him. The chance that they didn't help in other ways is vanishingly small.
Re: This is a fusor- yes, it involves fusion. (Score:2, Interesting)
Easier to buy and build it for your kid. Then claim the accomplishment and get the money and more back in college scholarships for your ADD kid.
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Impressive in the same way that my 6-year-old granddaughter rebuilt a T5 transmission last week (by handing me the tools).
Child or parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, a 12 year old doing it is pretty impressive.
How impressive it is really depends a lot on how much help he got from his parents. They clearly provided very significant financial support...
He did it all by himself (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not all. But a few.
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And nobody helped him. Not at all.
He followed some instructions he got off the Internet, spending $10k of his parents' money. That's not exactly a claim that nobody helped. I was building electronics kits out of magazines at age 12.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
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They should (Score:2)
Why shouldn't they? We live in a prosperous country, and spend more than that on educating a child for a year. Kids wanting to learn something like this should be able to apply for a government grant for "interesting project done by a kid." Not many kids would take them up on it, and we could even insist on having completed easier and cheaper projects before that. There are under 5 million 12-year-olds in the US. Assuming only 2% w
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Because all 12 year old boys have $10,000 to do whatever they want with.
Yeah this kid is lucky. I had to wait until I was 15 to buy a $10k sound system. He must have had rich parents.
Was his name Oliver Wendall Jones, perhaps (Score:1)
Next, the small thermonuclear device will win first prize at the science fair, winning over a CO2 volcano.
50kV of electricity? (Score:2)
Really? What do I do with that number?
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Maybe turn it down to about 25kV or your TV will let you see the bones in your hand.
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You take that number and realize it is the electrostatic potential used to perform fusion in this particular fusor. In short, it is a useful number. Fusors require at least 4KV difference to operate at all.
50000 volts of electricity? (Score:2)
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50kV isn't that strange. Fairly easy to make, as long as you don't need a lot of current.
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You obviously don't know much about fusors. Fusion takes ions under at least 4KV potential difference to fuse. The voltage of a fuser has meaning for those that know how fusors operate.
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1. It is electricity at 50kV. Voltage is not an "amount" of electricity.
2. You can get HV generators for 50kV cheaply on eBay.
A likely more accurate headline (Score:1)
"12-Year-Old Boy's Parents Build Nuclear Fusion Reactor, Boy Helps"
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$10,000? (Score:2, Insightful)
When I was twelve, I had trouble scraping together 10 bucks. Rich kids, hmph.
Paging Oliver Wendell Jones (Score:3)
That is "fission" you are talking about (Score:1)
Fusion is something else. Nobody will build that privately for a long, long time.
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Ah, I see, it is indeed "fusion", but in a completely useless way.
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Fusion is something else. Nobody will build that privately for a long, long time.
That's not the only problem. The problem of how to harness 1,000,000C heat is still unsolved to put it mildly. The only real use for a fusion reactor is as a waste burner and it would be a really expensive one at that. Fusion power generation will likely be something that doesn't happen in our lifetimes. Perhaps 100s or 1000s of years from now but not anytime soon. We just don't know how to efficiently extract energy from that level of heat and don't have the materials to contain that level of heat eit
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Not quite. This is a fusor, aka Electrostatic Confinement Fusion. One of the ways to use that is to use proton-boron fusion, which generates nothing but alpha particles. If the electrostatic well is designed correctly, theoretically you could capture those in the outer grid, where they will steal two electrons, thus generating electron flow, aka electricity.
Robert Bussard was working on that, his company Polywell is still doing research into different grid designs.
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Not quite. This is a fusor, aka Electrostatic Confinement Fusion. One of the ways to use that is to use proton-boron fusion, which generates nothing but alpha particles. If the electrostatic well is designed correctly, theoretically you could capture those in the outer grid, where they will steal two electrons, thus generating electron flow, aka electricity.
Robert Bussard was working on that, his company Polywell is still doing research into different grid designs.
I was unaware of proton-boron fusion so thanks. If its just alpha particles, why not just boil water with them? Its basically heat at that point. Getting the alpha particles to capture electrons seems hard and perhaps not the most efficient way to capture power but I don't know. It would be an interesting solution to the problem. Still have to make one that actually makes more power than it consumes though. And since the confinement consumes so much power that is hard. I know scientists always love e
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If you want to use it for electricity grids, direct conversion is supposed to be more efficient than going through the steam cycle.
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Oh yes. Theoretically a polywell reactor is possible, but we have absolutely no clue how to build the confinement grids to generate an electrostatic well with the correct depth to achieve self-sustaining fusion. It still is an interesting research field to keep an eye on.
As for alpha particles capturing electrons? Nope, not hard. They're big ungainly particles, so if they hit anything they will draw electrons in and turn into helium atoms.
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Wrong, thermal blanket to collect energy from a fusion reaction is a solved problem.
And of course hobbyists have privately built fusors, and they do perform fusion.
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No, you are ignorant.
Hobbists including teens have built fusors, they do fuse nuclei in very tiny amounts. Look it up.
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*facepalm*. This is dumb even for you.
Don't stop at making Helium (Score:2)
Phineas? (Score:3)
I got those parts off eBay primarily
"Aren't you a little young to be building a fusion reactor??"
"Yes ... yes I am."
Genndy Tartakovsky? (Score:1)
I think the kid's name is Dexter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Hey, he's a pretty smart kid. (Score:2)
He'll grow five inches in the next year.
Anything is possible... (Score:2)
...when you have parents that can throw huge amounts of money and help at a project.
A few points... (Score:2)
Even if his device never achieved fusion, 50 kV is more than enough potential to produce copious X-Rays. A steel chamber is likely thick enough to stop most emissions at energy level, especially since you get a broad spectra *up to* 50 KeV. However, failure to get this right such as by using plain glass for windows can be nasty. Lower energy X-Rays can be worse since they tend to be absorbed by rather than sailing through tissue
If we knew how many μA or mA his Fusor draws in operation along wit
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That was supposed to be uA. Apparently Slashdot mangles Unicode.