UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26450494

Is this really true?

I thought you needed rather extreme conditions to get hydrogen nuclei to fuse, not the sort that are easily recreated in a school science lab.

Are all our energy worries about to be solved thanks to a remarkably successful piece of homework?

Cheers

Gregor

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

It seems real enough if you google 'fusor'. It seems to be a replication of existing hobbyist level science rather than anything radically new. The story of american teenager Taylor Wilson is also interesting.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Have you ever been to Preston?

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

No our problems aren't going to be solved- it's only really useful if it results in a net energy gain (obviously)- which I am pretty sure this won't have even come close to. Of course it wouldn't take such a huge input in terms of energy from the grid, to fuse a couple of nuclei- whereas industrial-scale fusion takes vast energy inputs- and at the moment doesn't really give enough out. Don't think he is ahead of these guys:
https://www.iter.org/mach

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

This kid is going to destroy us all!

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Here is a how-to guide if you want a go.

http://makezine.com/projects/make-36-boards/nuclear-fusor/

I remember a group of us in the Physics club (AKA the avoid playground beatings by hiding in a science lab at breaks club) building one of these at college. It was pretty but ultimately useless.

In reply to Clarence:

awesome! now thats what I call a home science project

In reply to Strachan:



How many world records do you hold? (I don't think there's one for the most chips pissed on by a smart arse in a single post, but you might be in with a shout)

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

It's our answer to Sheldon Cooper!

In reply to 999thAndy:

Harsh.

Wasn't he just answering the second question asked in the initial post?

In reply to Dave Garnett:


Now, now, that's my old school. Perfectly sensible bunch in Preston and a great place to grow up. However was much amused by the science teacher who when asked in the BBC report "what's the worst case scenario with this experiment" her answer was classic Preston honesty "death" !

In reply to Removed UserJeremy Ashcroft:


"Now, wheres that "like" button when you want one?

In reply to skog:

Strachan could have decoupled the physics from the story had he wished simply to answer the 2nd part of the OPs question.

That kid has given up all his Christmas money, applied for grants, got knocked back, went to his head, got £2K (based on his solemn promise that he wouldn't blow the school up) given up lunchtimes and evenings to see a difficult thing through, clearly did some fairly advanced physics and becomes the youngest person to achieve this form of fusion.

The 4th comment on UKC? "don't think he's ahead of these guys [link]", which I thought very dismissive and deserving of some mild opprobrium.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

Sadly, this is why science is a bit dull to most people. To get excited about a dial moving is something I never really grasped despite being scientifically minded. I remember getting a chemistry set as a young lad and being completely underwhelmed by the fact that most of the experiments resulted simply in turning a liquid of one colour into another. Only the magnesium strip had any real appeal.

In reply to ByEek:
I managed to impale myself on a glass tube from a chemistry set. It was quite exciting watching my blood pump out of the other end of the tube.

I then managed to create hydrogen and explode all the apparutus it in our kitchen showering glass everywhere.

I gave up chemistry after that.

In reply to Dave Garnett:

haha - like

In reply to Skyfall:

"I gave up chemistry after that."

What! Just as it was getting interesting.

In reply to Fat Bumbly2:

lol - I wasn't really into self harm and I had a rubbish chemistry teacher who made it all so boring I couldn't be bothered with the school side of it.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:

The only slightly sad thing about this lad's achievement was that the school didn't have the stuff actually there for him to use. Before "combined science" curricula became the choice for some schools you would expect a Physics lab to have vacuum kit and variable transformers lying around waiting to be used. All we had to do was to machine the bits for the vacuum tube and make the fiddly bits to go in it, everything else was ready to hook up and go. School science has become too safe and based on little packaged experiments rather than the "gather round and gasp" big f**k-off demonstrations I loved as a kid.

In reply to Strachan:


I wouldn't be so sure, and I would certainly not be so dismissive. Before an ITER derived tokomak is forecast to power a single lightbulb anywhere in the world, this smart young chap has the time to go through senior school, take an undergraduate degree, obtain a PhD and go and work for one of the many firms out there who are building fusion reactors that are (or have the potential to be) superior to tokomaks in many ways.

Sadly - not even joking here - he has plenty of time to have a child and have that child get a PhD in nuclear fusion and start working for one of those firms before an ITER derived tokomak is forecast to be functioning as an actual power plant (post-DEMO, 2050ish.)...

I'd put good money on there being a breakthrough with something new before then, and do you think breakthroughs are more likely to come from a giant entrenched multi-national project with barely functional management ( http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2014/02/new-review-slams-fusion-pr... ) or small agile groups of innovators?

For example, the US Navy are funding development of fusion reactors derived from the IEC reactor, which is what I assume this chap built.

In reply to Clarence:

I remember a demonstration of the thermit process being conducted in the school playground as being one of those moments.
Do kids not learn about fun dangerous things these days? That saddens me.

In reply to no_more_scotch_eggs:


Not at all - you can fuse deuterium (heavy hydrogen) under conditions barely more extreme than those found in an old fashioned CRT television, which was where this sort of reactor started back in the 1940s - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor#Work_at_Farnsworth_Television_labs

Now the conditions required for a fusion reactor that produces enough energy - compared to the input - to be a viable electrical generator to tend towards the more extreme, although perhaps that will turn out to be a symptom of poor choices of reactor technology... Even then there is a habit of conflating "an average energy of 50KeV - just like your old fashioned TV" with " OMG billions of degrees" - its what happens once places get a press office...

In reply to Clarence:

. School science has become too safe and based on little packaged experiments rather than the "gather round and gasp" big f**k-off demonstrations I loved as a kid.

At high school we didn't have that much kit but our teachers did quite well. A physics teacher once drove her battered maestro down the rugby pitches screeming out of the window to demonstrate the Doppler effect.

In reply to wintertree and everyone else that answered:

thanks, some really interesting links there, i thought it must have been misreporting but sorry for doubting him...!

and farnsworth is an interesting person- inventor of the electronic tv as well as the fusor, having been brought up in the backwoods of idaho...

(not sure if idaho actually has any frontwoods...)

cheers
gregor

In reply to wintertree:
I absolutely agree with you, in the wider context of what he could go on to do in the future, he may well have a huge impact on energy research, and he definitely has the time to do this, I was just looking at the case of what he has done to date when writing my original message. It is fair to say that he is probably ahead of every member of every team behind Tokomak development when they were each 13! Cheers

In reply to 999thAndy:
I'm not being remotely dismissive- of course it is incredible what he has done; and no, I or anyone else I know could not have done it at 13, or any age in all likelihood. I was simply answering the question 'are our energy problems about to be solved?' by this boy, and the answer is no, at least not right now. However he clearly has enormous potential and the time to achieve some pretty amazing things if he continues to be interested in science. I was saying to someone yesterday afternoon how mind-blowing it is that he has managed to pull this off, so anyone who thinks I am trying to 'p*ss on his chips' probably needs to read what I have written more carefully. I wouldn't want anyone to think I had anything other than admiration for this guy, because really, it is pretty amazing at 13 to have got a fusion reaction going. All I was saying was that if you take his age and the world record status out of the equation he hasn't done anything that is right now going to change anything in terms of energy production- that doesn't make it any less fantastic that at 13 he has done what is, I imagine, really pretty advanced science- especially given what it says about his ability to do something genuinely game-changing in the future. I hope this clarifies things and that you understand I am not trying to be a smart arse or to discredit this guy at all, as I certainly wouldn't want to give that impression.