17 yr old achieves nuclear fusion in his basement

Ex-RoNiN

Ex-RoNiN

Ex-RoNiN

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A 17-year-old US student has, after two years' work and 1,000 hours of research, managed to achieve nuclear fusion in the basement of his parents' Oakland Township home, The Detroit Free Press reports.

Thiago Olson's Fusor was knocked together with bits and pieces bought on the internet and blagged from manufacturers at a discount. It includes "a piece of equipment taken from an old mammogram machine", which provides the 40,000 volt charge necessary to provoke fusion in deuterium gas injected into a steel vacuum chamber.

Nuclear fusion wasn't Olsen's orginal aim, however. His mum Natalice admitted: "Originally, he wanted to build a hyperbaric chamber," adding that she firmly vetoed the plan. Of his fusion success, she enthused: "I think it was pretty brave that he could think that he was capable to do something so amazing."

Olsen was a semifinalist this year in the Siemens Foundation's National Research Competition and plans to enter the Science and Engineering Fair of Metropolitan Detroit next year, and thereafter qualify for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. His long-term aim is to work for the federal government, The Detroit Free Press notes. ®
Bootnote

According to www.fusor.net, Olsen is the eighteenth amateur to achieve nuclear fusion. The site has more background to the "Inertial Electrostatic Confinement" approach to fusion as developed by Philo T Farnsworth back in the 1960s, which forms the basis of the young man's machine.
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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/22/amateur_fusion_project/



:cool:
 
nuke.jpg







From Basement instead of Orbit I guess...
 
is it just me that thinks the papers and there guv are taking this a little lightly :confused: I would have though playing with this sort of thing in your basement would be quite dangerous and if was was living next door I wouldn't want a 17 year old playing with that no matter how smart he his, chances are he could level the street. or am I blowing this up too much ?
 
Gman said:
is it just me that thinks the papers and there guv are taking this a little lightly :confused: I would have though playing with this sort of thing in your basement would be quite dangerous and if was was living next door I wouldn't want a 17 year old playing with that no matter how smart he his, chances are he could level the street. or am I blowing this up too much ?
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If that were the case the Human race would have got nowhere the last couple of hundred years.....
 
That doesn't really say what it is... I'm guessing from the name it's where they put divers to de-pressurise if they come back up to the surface too quickly?

PS. what was the reason we don't have nuclear fusion reactors again? Wasn't it something about not being able to control the process enough, and how come an amateur can do it in his basement?
 
manveruppd said:
what was the reason we don't have nuclear fusion reactors again? Wasn't it something about not being able to control the process enough, and how come an amateur can do it in his basement?
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Fusion is probably easy enough to achieve, it's doing it on a big enough scale to produce more power than it uses, continuously that's the problem.

Jokester
 
manveruppd said:
PS. what was the reason we don't have nuclear fusion reactors again? Wasn't it something about not being able to control the process enough, and how come an amateur can do it in his basement?
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1) we can only sustain the reaction for seconds
2) it takes more energy to sustain than it releases

Nothing stopping a basement clever clogs doing it. But I bet his reactions Only last milli seconds.
 
I wish my CV was as good as his, he's gonna pretty much walk into a Scholarship now I reckon.
 
so his mum said no to a high-pressure chamber, but yes to a machine that turns hydrogen into helium?

:confused: :confused: :confused:
 
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