Have Any of you heard about the kid that did nuclear fusion in his basement?

Question

He's friends with one of my friends and I went to his house on saturday. He showed us his nuclear fusion reactor and turned it on and everything. It looked like a small, glowing, gaseous ball in the middle of the chamber. Do you think he's actually creating nuclear fusion? If he is, he's the 18th person who has been able to do it outside of a government lab, and the only one to have done it out side of a laboratory all together. There are articles about him in newspapers all over the world. You can read one at http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061119/NEWS03/611190639&template=printart. Or just create a search for : Thiago, nuclear fusion.

I know fusion has already been accomplished and he hasn't really made any sort of scientific breakthrough, but I still think it's amazing that he did it. I think it shows a lot of detication.

Answer 1

It sounds like he built an inertial electrostatic confinement fusion (IEC) device. If so then odds are he is achieving fusion. IEC is an area of fusion research that has gained alot of interest lately. It is a simple and cheep way to create fusion. While IEC is no where close to break even, the fusion reaction it creates can be used for plasma experiments, neutron sources, or even a means of producing medical isotopes. So while is doesn't look like it will be able to produce electricity anytime soon, it is still a worth wild venture.

The claim that he is the 18 person outside of a government lab to achieve fusion is bogus. Many universities around the world have small scale fusion reactors. In fact causing fusion to occur is easy, the hard part is to get more energy out of it, then you put it.

For more info on IEC go here
http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/iec/inertial_electrostatic_confineme.htm

Answer 2

No, not possible. You cannot overcome the coulomb barrier to nuclear fusion in a small apperatus like that. He is probably generating a glow discharge from excited electrons in his Deuterium atoms plus whatever contaminants he's got in his vacuum chamber. He's made some variant of a gas discharge tube.

Any fusion would be accompanied by significant release of high-energy particles, so it's a good thing for him that his experiment doesn't actually work.

I don't particularly enjoy being a nay-sayer here, but the whole "fusion in a bottle" thing has been extensively worked over since Pons and Fleischmann, and the sad truth is that it's no more possible than spinning straw into gold or running a car on water.

P.S. OK, I stand corrected---as pointed out in other answers, his apperatus is probably a Fusor, where fusion is obtained, and the coulomb barrier overcome, by beaming particles at a target. That does make it a potenitally dangerous radioactive experiment. It's not really a fusion "reactor", more of a fusion particle-beam experiment.

Answer 3

I agree with Eugene N. Making a fusion device is not the same as making a power generating fusion device. Probably many others have done it, but he may be the first kid (non-adult) to do it.

By the way, the equipment needed to verify that fusion is actually occurring is not simple or cheap, so I doubt he has actually proved he is creating fusion.

Answer 4

Fusion has been accomplished many times and is no big deal. The trick is to get more energy out of the process than you put in. That's the Holy Grail right now. Otherwise it has no practical use for generating power.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

I'll second cosmo's answer. Fusion ISN'T possible with that kind of apparatus. You may be interested to know that fission reactions have been done at home however. See my source for a link to one example

Answer 7

Wow! I was sure this was a hoax, and maybe it will turn out to be, but if it is he sure has lots of scientists and news organizations fooled.

Answer 8

I am very impressed!