Jackson Oswalt, an American boy has built a working nuclear fusion reactor in his own playroom at the age of 12.
Jackson Oswalt, who is now 14, is believed to be the youngest person in the world to achieve this. This schoolboy of Memphis, Tennessee successfully made a nuclear fusion reactor with the financial assistance from his parents.
He bought the equipment worth around $10,000 (£7,700) from eBay and converted an old playroom into a nuclear laboratory. He built the machine using customized vacuums, pumps and chambers.
Oswalt was able to fuse two deuterium gas atoms into helium, and he was able to create a neutron from smashing the atoms together and accomplish fusion. The processes required 50,000 volts of electricity to heat deuterium gas and fuse the nuclei to release energy.
Richard Hull, a retired electronics engineer has verified Jackson’s work.
“The start of the process was just learning about what other people had done with their fusion reactors,” Jackson said. “After that, I assembled a list of parts I needed. [I] got those parts off eBay primarily and then often times the parts that I managed to scrounge off of eBay weren’t exactly what I needed. So, I’d have to modify them to be able to do what I needed to do for my project.”
“Being a parent of someone that was as driven as he was for 12 months was really impressive to see,” Jackson’s father Chris Oswalt said. “I mean it was everyday grinding; everyday learning something different; everyday failing and watching him work through all those things.”
