The boy who played with fusion
by Tom Clynes · first published 2015
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How an American teenager became the youngest person ever to build a working nuclear fusion reactor. By the age of nine, Taylor Wilson had mastered the science of rocket propulsion. At eleven, his grandmother's cancer diagnosis drove him to investigate new ways to produce medical isotopes. And by fourteen, Wilson had built a 500-million-degree reactor and become the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion. How could someone so young achieve so much, and what can Wilson's story teach parents and teachers about how to support high-achieving kids? Here, science journalist Tom Clynes n
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He's dead now :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn Another related good read is "The Boy Who Played with Fusion: Extreme Science, Extreme Parenting, and How to Make a Star".
on “The Radioactive Boy Scout (1999)” ↗…Cold - Tom Shachtman How to Cool the Planet - Jeff Goodell Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science - Christoph Irmscher No Turning Back - Richard Ellis The Edge of Physics - Anil Ananthaswamy The Boy Who Played with Fusion - Tom Clynes X-15 Diary - Richard Tregaskis Essays in Science - Albert Einstein A Devil's Chaplan - Richard Dawkins $15+ The Canon - Natalie Angier Earth: An Alien Enterprise - Timothy Good The…
on “Science and Non-Fiction Humble Bundle” ↗By coincidence I'm currently reading The Boy Who Played with Fusion https://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Played-Fusion/dp/0544705025, which tells the amazing story of Taylor Wilson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Wilson) who performed this feat when he was 14. It's mind…
on “12-Year-Old Claims to Have Achieved Nuclear Fusion at Home (2018)” ↗Sure they do: The Boy Who Played With Fusion http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-02/boy-who-played...
on “Nobody builds nuclear reactors for fun anymore” ↗