

Wyoming teen builds nuclear reactor in dad's garage - da02
http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming-teen-builds-nuclear-r%20eactor-in-dad-s-garage-gets/article_ec305fc7-3597-5315-8e98-2b38eaa7bfe3.htm

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sbierwagen
A nuclear _fusion_ reactor, that is.

A Farnsworth-Hirsch fusor, to be specific. Fairly cheap. Really, authentically
produces hydrogen fusion... but not much of it (neutron flux is very low) and
it can't run very long before the accelerator grids overheat. It's basically a
spherical particle accelerator, and doesn't come anywhere close to achieving
breakeven. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor>

Tom Ligon wrote an article for Analog in 1998 describing how a high school
student could build one for a science fair:
<http://fusor.net/newbie/files/Ligon-QED-IE.pdf>

Quite a few people have built operational fusors, including many high school
students:
[http://fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13&p=512](http://fusor.net/board/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13&p=512)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
This is the weirdest example of pg's negative comment up-voting I have ever
seen. True you are not actually nit-picking the article but the second
paragraph comes close to dismisal.

A teenager built a fusion reactor FFS. I had trouble making coffee this
morning.

This is the Maker top 1% - and should be celebrated, not compared poorly to
other similar attempts.

~~~
nextw33k
What amazes me is that I read the original comment as just an explanation to
encourage others to try. It seemed like a list of places to start if you
wanted to make one yourself.

You appeared to see it as negative...fascinating.

~~~
mechanical_fish
There is nothing negative in the original comment, because there is no shame
in replicating a scientific experiment that has been done before.

In fact, carefully replicating other people's complicated experiments is what
science is about. If you want to pretend that you're being original take up
structural knitting or something.

The original comment's context was very useful because it tells us that the
article isn't about some crazy and dangerous attempt to build a fission
reactor by hoarding radioactive waste (see: scary link from patio11) but about
an experiment that has been legitimately accomplished by high school students
in the past and which is rather less dangerous (because it doesn't start
irradiating nearby objects, like your body, until you throw the switch... and
you don't need to leave it turned on much longer than it takes to read a
Geiger counter and high-five somebody.)

~~~
pasbesoin
I agree with these comments in support of the original comment. It was, in my
opinion, _informative_. Which is -- to put it in the context of the current
apparent meta-discussion about HN's role that I seem to see scattered about
the site -- where HN started out.

It was a much smaller community, then. And it was, perhaps more so than today,
supportive -- genuinely supportive.

But it was about _information_. And support was not about obligatory glad-
handing or pats on the back. Some of it could be fairly critical, at times.
_Informatively_ critical and in the interest of improvement, for the target of
criticism and for the community at large. "Constructive" criticism, I guess.

Not that I perceived the comment that started this sub-thread as being
critical. (Except perhaps -- if one chose to take it that way -- of what might
be a hyped news headline. Not the student.)

I really appreciate the context that comment provides. If I'd known that when
I was a student, maybe I would have had another interesting thing to try out.

------
patio11
See also: <http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html>

(There's a sad coda at the end where the kid did _not_ learn the lesson about
the wisdom of scratch-building nuclear reactors out of foil and smoke
detectors.

------
Someone
Fusors have been built before; stories like this surface every few years. What
interests me most about this is why he built it. Farnsworth isn't that common
a name. Did he inherit a heap of stuff from his grandfather, or did the shared
surname make him think it would be cool to build one for himself?

~~~
t2d2
I want to know too. That's how Weird Al got his start. there happens to be an
unrelated famous accordion player also named Yankovic. People should choose
their last names more carefully. :-)

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kondro
I'm curious. Is there any practical benefit to building one of these apart
from proving that it can be done?

~~~
knappe
I would hazard a guess that learning might be a practical benefit. Otherwise,
as sbierwagen pointed out, no, not really.

~~~
kondro
I'm not saying that the effort was wasted. I just wanted to understand if this
type of reactor had any direct practical benefits.

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jayfuerstenberg
What a disappointing article.

There were no details about his fusion reactor (the thing I actually wanted to
read about), just talk about his disqualification from some science fairs.

~~~
da02
You're right. I can relate to what you are saying. (eg most of the
nanotech/cancer stuff posted here is not as interesting as metal chelators.
But it sounds "cool" and "hi-tech" to most people.)

The main reason I posted it was to get other people's opinion on it (since I
don't have a degree in science).

What are your thoughts on the comedic potential? (ie a Farnsworth getting
kicked out of a science fair despite building a reactor.)

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sekm
I don't get the story. Did the lady really get 'taken care of' as the article
steers us to believe? Did her career end, or did she simply end her time doing
that role (maybe it's not even a sought after role?)...

Besides, I was hoping to hear more about the reactor :(

~~~
t2d2
I don't know. for all the sensationalism it does seem like a pretty clear
violation of the rules.

I want to know how he didn't qualify at his first science fair. Maybe he can
build and follow directions but doesn't know the science part well enough. is
there another story about how this kid entered a science fair with a nuclear
reactor but didn't qualify for the international contest?

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lifeisstillgood
This is brilliant. A teenager has put aside the TV remote, taken an interest
in the work of those before, read, learnt experimented and actually made
something.

They are now likely to continue on this path, practising and following in
others footsteps until one day they make something that no-one has made
before. Enough of these teenagers and we might just survive the century as a
human race.

