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WY Teen Cut From Science Fair For Entering Too Many
An anonymous reader writes " A Wyoming high school student who built a nuclear reactor in his dad's garage was disqualified from the International Science and Engineering Fair this month on a technicality.' His crime: competing in too many science fairs."
I've heard of several teens building nuclear reactors in their garages it seems. How are they accomplishing this, when foreign states seem to have such difficulty?
He won't lose any high school credit because he wasn't able to compete in his nth science fair. But just think how good his resume after college will read when it says that he was disqualified because he entered too many science fairs in high school.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Maybe he ought to share with Lawrence Livermore (https://www.llnl.gov/) and the ITER project (http://www.iter.org/).
People who take an "unusual" interest in knowing things are dangerous.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Our society encourages people who refuse to learn or take responsibility for their education or that of their children, by throwing money to them every chance we can.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
... if the faculty could figure how to get this kid to coach others.
Regardless, it does seem like he'll have a bright future if he's that motivated.
"To stop the terrorists."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inertial_electrostatic_confinement
Its only 'fair'.. to all the other kids.
Wyoming has the smallest population and he didn't win, so he entered in another state.
The rules are there for a reason.
From article: "Conrad Farnsworth is the first person in Wyoming to build a nuclear fusion reactor. He is one of only 15 high school students in the world to successfully achieve fusion. He made it using parts he ordered online, traded with other fusioneers and created himself." So this and 15 other high school students have been able to achieve what no other scientist in the world has been able to achieve to date? Hmmm.
But hey, he's wearing a lab coat. Can't he go on TV to sell Viagra?
The Farnsworth–Hirsch fusor is decades old, relatively easy to build (I know someone who built one in his garage), available commercially (as a neutron source) and is generally considered to be not a candidate for fusion power.
Given that the name of the student is Conrad Farnsworth, I have to wonder if there is a family connection, but the article does not go into that.
Science fairs are of no value, they're time wasters for kids (and parents) and judges aren't remotely interested in improving entrants' knowledge. This young man would be far better off making contact with his local university and signing up for evening classes beyond the crap they do at high school.
The kid's name is Farnsworth... Where on his family tree is there a Phillip J Fry?
I made a stink bomb in chemistry class, and not only did I get banned, I also got the black plimsoll across my backside! (c. 1973).
"He is one of only 15 high school students in the world to successfully achieve fusion."
Really? Wow.
I predict many job offers for this individual.
Farnsworth said: "I don't want to live on this planet anymore!"
The summary makes it look like he is being held back by bureaucracy, while he's really just using it. He entered ONE project in many fairs. Each of these fairs were lateral contests in a larger competition. Effectively he entered multiple times in the over-all road to the International Fair.
What he did would be like a NCAA team losing in March Madness multiple times, only to move position in the bracket, to try again on each defeat. Sorry, I couldn't think of a car analogy.
The kid was taking the same project to different fairs after failing to qualify. Nothing is stopping him from doing Science. He was more interested in being successful. He wasn't doing this so he could "do more science". He was doing it so he could basically enter more times, giving him an unfair advantage. Say I ran a science fair for a bunch of inner city kids. They worked really hard on their projects. When time for judging comes up, some AP, college-bound kid with a rich ( anything white-collar, to these inner city kids) dad comes in with his garage-built project. He didn't qualify in his home town, but blows these kids out of the water. I would be livid.
However, by seeing the way he plays ball, we know he will fit right in in Academia.
any idea why the back buttton in firefox works but the keyboard control is lost?
A Farnsworth Fusor is a fusion reactor and can be built at home with a little electrical engineering prowess. Someone needs to do some research before making claims that it can't be done. The problem with that device is that the containment is too good. It's not possible to add fuel once the reaction is started and the reaction produces less energy than is required to start it.
If teleportation of protons (ionized hydrogen, not photons) becomes practical, it may achieve breakeven.
He should forget science... And try politics where that bullshit works better.
Or maybe banking. Big business... Maybe be a lawyer.
All good for cheating in..
Science? Not so much.
The problem with that device is that the containment is too good. It's not possible to add fuel once the reaction is started
How is that possible? If you shoot a drop of liquid deuterium into the chamber, what will stop it from getting inside?
Techmology. What does it all mean? My mainly rainbow Jeremy rejects all things science.
> If teleportation of protons (ionized hydrogen, not photons) becomes practical, it may achieve break-even
It is extremely unlikely that any non-equilibrum reactor will ever reach break even. This includes the fusor, Forward's design, focus fusion, and many other designs. The bremsstrahlung is simply too great for any realistically sized reactor to stop thermal transport out of the core more rapidly than the reaction rate can replace it.
That's the kid's own website, right? If we don't already trust a teenager's claims to have made a homebrew fusion reactor, why would we trust a site where he congratulates himself for his achievements? As far as I know, it's a LED in a fancy looking tube.
However, by seeing the way he plays ball, we know he will fit right in in Academia.
A moron who can't do practical work and reads tutorials on the Internet? I think not.
This name coincidence is really cool, and he built a fusion device, I would call it "take shelter, buy a gun and much canned food" the DOOMSDAY DEVICE is on the rise!
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of mediocre minds." - Emerson
No. Exactly this. I'm referring to propping oneself up on the work of others; worrying more about getting grants and being published in Journals. I didn't say he would excel, but he sure is cut out for it.
That's the kid's own website, right?
No, it's not. You may have been confused because his name is Farnsworth, which isn't a particularly common name; as another poster said, it would be interesting to know if there's a family connection with the Farnsworth the fusor is named for. Fusor.net, AFAICT, is a site run by and for fusor hobbyists, people who like to tinker with the kind of machines this kid built.
And for those who are saying "Oh, he just downloaded some tutorials off the net"--well, if you could or would have done something like that as a teenager, good for you, but most people couldn't or wouldn't. It's not groundbreaking research, but putting together a working fusor is a pretty neat accomplishment for a high-school kid.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
No, it's not "worse than that". Fusion reactors are pretty simple to build. It's hard to build fusion reactors with net energy output, but he didn't claim to have done that. Fission reactions are actually a bit harder, simply because the material is harder to get. He probably didn't move on in the science fair because the project really wasn't all that innovative.
If a reactor can't win on the first try what will? I haven't followed these kid shows in a long time but I wonder what won over this in the show he lost in.
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
This is clearly Rodney McKay starving for attention and compliments. Hasn't he been accosted by the FBI about his job in the Stargate program yet?
I concur. Very little "science" is done here. The kid cobbled together a cookbook "fission" reactor and then hawked it until he won somewhere. The disregard for anything but winning, the derivative nature of the work, the hurt feeling caused by "the man keeping him down" all reek of self promotion and playing the system show me an excellent and lucrative future in the status quo. But that is the whole point, isn't it?
Where do we go from here
Almost anything is a nuclear reactor if you play with the definition. There are isotopes decaying in my thumb right now. It's a nuclear reactor.
But it's not a fusion reactor. If you want to trivialize what the kid did, at least compare apples to apples.
It takes absolutely no talent to waste power like this. Well, perhaps it does, to use so much power while getting so little useful result.
Think about carefully next time you're driving down the road in a vehicle that gets around 12% effeciency from the gasoline it burns.
I'll think about that, and I'll think about the fact it could probably be 30% more efficient than that, if it wasn't for all the crap additives like ethanol and MTBE they are stuffing into it to keep cars manufactured prior to 1981 (prior years did not have oxygen sensors to control fuel mixture) from polluting.
Then I'll wonder exactly how many pre-1981 cars are actually still on the road, and I'll wonder about the percentage of total fuel usage by all cars which is accounted for by pre-1981 cars.
Then I'll start in again with my sneaking suspicion that the reformulation lobbying by Chevron in California is less about a concern for pollution, and more about a concern for Chevron to have their markets there protected from imports from out of state refineries unable to keep up with California's frequently changing reformulation requirements. You know, for the children, not so that they can have a higher profit margin due to sole-sourcing or anything.
I just caught this on AP and decided to check out the source. Something does not make sense in the way this story was crafted by the author. There are rules of engagement in EVERY competition (sports, spelling bees, etc) and how then can this kid (or worse, the kid's teacher), who claims to have been preparing for this event for years not know them??? The facts (not the writer's spin, but the facts) appear to be that this kid tried in one fair and failed to advance, so he then jumped into another state's fair to get around this first failure. This is cheating, plain and simple. What is this lesson teaching him about ethics and morality here? We should all be ashamed. The loss of ethics and honesty here is especially critical, in fact, of paramount importance, when we are talking about science teachers and future scientists, since we have to trust their honesty above all else. If they cheat, everyone loses. It is a shame, then, that the administrators at UW rushed to decide to throw the state director, their subordinate, under the bus, saying her actions were not condoned by them and she acted outside her authority. It is THEIR heads that should roll, not the state director's who was only doing what they were paid to do. If you don't believe me, think about this -- what if this kid ended up winning and the international science fair officials found out later that he was ineligible because of the rules of the International Science Fair Association, and it was later learned that the state director knew he was ineligible but kept her mouth shut. Do you think the UW administrators would not still fire her? Certainly they would. The actions of the UW administrators plainly reveal that they are doing everything they can to protect their own jobs and keep the public's eye off them. Truth, ethics, and morality are the true victems here, not this kid who regrettably cheated. His teacher should be fired as well.
No, he's a liar and cheater and won't fit into scientific academia, but but he will prosper in University administration.
"disqualified from the International Science and Engineering Fair"
I'll show you! ...I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!!!!!
Muahahahahaha...
He entered many fairs? The article I read mentioned two, Wyoming State Fair and one for South Dakota. It's something his school has been doing for at least a few years as they live so near the border.
I wouldn't exactly call entering two fairs that were geographically very close to the school gaming the system.
Building a reactor isn't science. It's not even a new design, but even if it was, that'd be engineering, not science. Science is about forming a hypothesis, testing that hypothesis, and forming a theory, model, etc, about something as a result. Winning a science fair requires doing new science that no one has even done before. It might require building your own equipment / apparatus, but it might not. Science fair judges are looking for projects that are actual science projects, not just building something, not just collecting information. They need background, methods, hypothesis, results, and discussion. The experiment needs to be valid, have the proper controls, be done correctly, etc. The conclusions need to be valid and modest. The student needs to suggest further experiments that would further support or reject the hypothesis.
These might not be the standard at any random local school with bad science teachers, but it is the standard when you get to the state-level and higher fairs. The local high school here actually recruits scientists from a world-class research university to be judges, because they are lucky enough to be near one.
There is a BIG difference between knowing science, and actually being able to do science. Someone can memorize 1000 recipes, and learn to execute them perfectly. That doesn't make them a chef, that makes them a cook at best. A chef is able to invent NEW recipes, like a scientist is able to discover new scientific knowledge.
If you just like to build, deseign, and tweak stuff, go into engineering. But if you want to be an actual scientist, capable of earning a PhD, you're going to need to do science. The major missing component here is the Hypothesis, which is the cornerstone of science. There are scientists with only Master's degrees, but there are two types of those. There are those who are capable of earning a PhD, but chose not to for some reason. There are a lot of reasons to not get a PhD. Then, there are those wouldn't failed to get a PhD, or wouldn't have been able to if they tried. A PhD, or at least being capable of earning one, is important to scientists, because it's like the separation between cooks and chefs. Are you happy to just do the experiments, maybe the same ones over and over for some company, or do you want to design new experiments, have original ideas, ask for funding, and add to the body of scientific knowledge?
We need both types of people in this world. We actually need way more of the former, which is good, because there are way more of the former. That's where most of the non-academic jobs are. But the upper level science fairs, are being judged, according to the standards of the academic scientists on the PhD track, or already having a PhD. I never realized that as a child, and I was lazy, and I didn't get any support from my parents, so I never produced a good science fair project. However, my PhD's adviser's son, does very good projects. He knows what real science is. He is not lazy at all. He enjoys the projects. He has a lot of support, including access to university labs. He does well in science fairs.
Well, let's see if you got *anything* correct. Fusion != fission. School entered him in two venues != 'hawked it'. Disregard, derivative, hurt feeling, keeping him down, self promotion, playing the system are all not in evidence. Status quo - makes no sense, not even wrong. whole point = mindless rant.
It's worth noting that high school science is not generally expected to involve nobel prize-level work. At best it's likely to be an extension of existing work, or a demonstration of existing work.
OTOH, based on the effort he put in, an excellent and lucrative future may well be in the cards.
I'd be very interested to know a) why this kid didn't advance in his home state and b) why other kids did? Was the judging really objective or was there some bias somewhere? Did the judges base their decision on criteria other than real science? I don't think we've heard the whole story here.
But let's consider this: you write a research paper and submit it to one peer-review journal. They reject it. Does that mean you shouldn't be allowed to submit it to other journals? What if it turns out that your paper totally blows away popular theory and the rejection was simply a case of the reviewers sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "lalalalalala...we're not listening to you..."?
For my own part, I do understand what it means to get screwed because somebody gamed the system. In my senior year in undergrad engineering, I was up for best senior project. A fellow student also entered and won. Her secret weapon turned out to be the fact that her boyfriend, who was a student at MIT with all the resources of such a place at his fingertips, was the one who did all the work. Everyone in the class told me that I got screwed. Was I pissed? Sure. The bitch got a special piece of paper at graduation. Where is she now? Who knows. Me, I started two successful businesses. The real lesson here is not to allow someone else determine your fate. Do your own thing and the market will decide if your efforts should be rewarded. Of course I say this and yet people make a crapload of money on shamwows. Doing your own thing doesn't necessarily mean it must be technically/scientifically brilliant.
Kids a douche in training. He'll likely pursue a career in sales, not academia.
I wouldn't exactly call entering two fairs that were geographically very close to the school gaming the system.
How is getting to have twice as many chances to enter as all the other kids not gaming the system? How does the distance enter into it? How far apart do the two fairs have to be for it to stop being fair?
~Idarubicin
If only he was a black girl in the inner city who set off a bomb at school. Then he would have been rewarded with a trip to Space Camp.
STFU!
Muslims are delightful people. You're just bigoted.
Christians, on the other hand, can suck my balls.
Signed,
A Liberal.
STFU!
Christians and Muslims are the same.
They can both suck my balls.
Signed,
A sane person.
It wasn't a "technicality." It was a rule, and even a fairly reasonable one.
So he was disqualified for not following the rules, then tried to get around that by playing the ever-popular "Duh, I didn't know the rules..." card. The one that always works with police and courts. Any fault lies with him, his parents, or his advisors. One of them should have had the sense to check it out.
Three Squirrels
Any relation to Philo T. Farnsworth?
Both TFS and TFA make it sound like the kid competed in LOTS of events, and kept entering until he won. He did no such thing. He competed in two events. One a regional, the other a state. Just like the rules said he could. He just entered the state one first. Because he qualified from the regional to the international, it doesn't even sound like it is a case of regional qualifies for state which qualifies for international. Especially since he went straight to the state, and then qualified from the regional. The rule allows for two fairs, he went to two fairs. It just happened that one of the regional fairs, was in a different state (yet closer than apparently regional in his home state)
If you can qualify for the international straight from a regional, then the rule is stupid.
Doomsday device. It's a weird coincidence that his name is Farnsworth. Now it would be really weird if it were Wernstrom.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
#1- The kid didn't build a nuclear anything. He used some nuclear theory to build something that wasn't anywhere near nuclear. .... contrary to what he claimed. Apparently the kid faked the data that got him to the ISF and got caught.
#2- He wasn't kicked out for participating in too many science fairs. His project was disqualified (along with a few others) because it was "incomplete" and non-functional
No. Exactly this. I'm referring to propping oneself up on the work of others;
Maybe you should have actually read the article.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
You speak as if "all the other kids" are only allowed to enter one fair. You are wrong. They can all enter at least two fairs.
The only issue is that this kid entered a regional fair after he entered a state level fair. It didn't matter if he placed in one or the other, or both. The only issue is the timing of a regional fair was later in the year than the state fair.
Because that is the only reason he was disqualified, the people in charge are planing to rewrite the rule to take these circumstances into account.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Take a look at the math for bremsstrahlung, it'll make your head spin. It needs its own notation.
I believe that the point is that this kid is so into science that he was penalized for actually using his mind and entering science fairs. A lot of them. Guess they think he should be on the street corner selling or doing drugs instead
I wonder if this is the same brilliant kid that gave the Ted talk a while ago on a break through of nuke tech
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
Impossible. Liberals have no balls.
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This difference in attitude runs throughout each religion, and illustrates a source of world problems today.
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