Homely Scientist

Ah science fair projects.  Oddly enough I never participated in any, my school didn’t have them.  But we did have the yearly science project for class.  Let’s see for chem I tested various water proofing agents on leather.  Bio was a bacteria experiment.  Physics, I played with wing design on gliders.  I never considered making a fusion reactor.  Well a 17 year old in Michigan thought about it, and did it:

Now I don’t know what’s most surprising, the fact that it was a 17 year old that made a device that can fuse two hydrogen atoms together, or the fact that you can get the pieces for it from eBay.
Source: 17 year old teenager builds homemade fusion reactor

Yep he made it work.  Yep including the “star in a jar” (that would be the 200 million degree ball of plasma).  Can you imagine the conversation with his mom?  “Hey mom, I’d like to build a fusion reactor in the basement.”  “Okay, honey, just shield us from the x-rays and keep that plasma ball under control this time…”

His mother, oddly, is rather calm and almost unsurprised about the wonder of physics sitting in her suburban basement. She’s done the usual “He’s so bright” routine, but also joked about Thiago’s other “lofty ideas,” such as building a hyberbolic chamber (she flatly denied that one). Of course, when he asked about the fusion reactor, she finally said yes. Fortunately, the machine poses little danger aside from the extremely high voltage, small amount of X-rays, and the 200 million degree ball of plasma. That’s all… From Bit-tech

Some kids get to have all the fun.

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