Schoolboy purportedly builds nuclear reactor in playroom lab
Hobbyists say Jackson Oswalt of Tennessee is youngest person to achieve fusion.
(Web Desk) – A 14-year-old schoolboy has reportedly become the youngest known person in the world to build a functioning nuclear fusion reactor in his family s spare room.
The enterprising teenager namely Jackson Oswalt built a nuclear laboratory from customised vacuums, pumps and chambers bought on eBay by his parents - costing the family a total of $10,000.
The equipment uses 50,000 volts of electricity to heat deuterium gas and fuse the nuclei to release energy.
While other kids are playing video games or watching TV, Oswalt has been busy in achieving a nuclear reaction.
The potential nuclear engineer has been working on this project since he was 12, and on 19 January 2018, just hours before his 13th birthday, he reportedly achieved his mission.
"For those that haven t seen my recent posts, it will come as a major surprise that I would even consider believing I had achieved fusion," he wrote on the Fusor.net forum recently.
"However, over the past month I have made an enormous amount of progress resulting from fixing major leaks in my system. I now have results that I believe to be worthy."
To be clear, these claims have not been peer reviewed as yet - until they re replicated and the results are published in a peer-review journal, we need to take all of this with a very, very big grain of salt.
However, scientists are likely to remain skeptical until Oswalt’s workings are subject to verification from an official organization and are published in an academic journal.
But Oswalt is not the only one who thinks he s been successful.
The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, a hobbyist group, has also verified Oswalt s results.
According to Jason Hull, an administrator on the website, Oswalt has now been added to the hobbyist group s list of successful fusioneers.
"Good work. Nice system. You have put some money into this," Hull wrote, applauding Oswalt s work.
“He s not wrong. While Oswalt s nuclear reactor is considered a ‘tiny volume fusor’, setting it up in an old playroom in his parents house cost something like $10,000,” he said.
Importantly, Oswalt is not the only teenager who is working on such ambitious projects.
If Oswalt s results are peer-reviewed or verified by a scientific organization, he will have officially ousted the former record holder, a 14-year-old named Taylor Wilson, as the youngest person to ever achieve nuclear fusion.
