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High Schoolers Use Homemade Nuclear Fusion Reactor To Dominate Science Fairs (us.com)
An anonymous reader writes: 20 high school students gather every Friday night in a basement of a modest home in Federal Way, Washington to work on science experiments using a home-made nuclear fusion reactor. [They've also reportedly won top honors in science fairs as well as college scholarships.] This extreme science club is the brainchild of Carl Greninger, a Program Manager at Microsoft by day, scientist by night. He was concerned about the current state of high school science education, [and] lamented that the public school system does not truly expose students to the excitement of experimental discovery.
So using his own money (and one-ton of radiation shielding), Greninger "gathered some students and built a working nuclear fusion reactor in his garage."
So using his own money (and one-ton of radiation shielding), Greninger "gathered some students and built a working nuclear fusion reactor in his garage."
I dug around on the website and found this document which seems to indicate that yes, we're talking about a Farnsworth Fusor.
It probably is fusion, just not net-positive. In other words, a collider.
This is exactly what the radioactive boyscout did, but he got arrested and his work confiscated. Yet this guy gets to keep his? Maybe I should build a reactor.
This is exactly what's wrong with science education in America.
The radioactive boy scout did fission, while these high school students are doing fusion.
Buy a dictionary, there's a difference.
I couldn't find any definite information, but this is probably a Farnsworth Fusor, which is every bit a valid and interesting science project for high schoolers. (It's about the right size and gives off about the right glow.)
No it is not the same, the radioactive boy-scout produced a significant amount of radio nucleotides in a self sustaining fission reaction, all these fusion fan boys do is blast some heavy hydrogen and knock off it's neutron. As far as I know they have never managed to activate any other element to create an isotope that was unstable and considered dangerous, as the radioactive boy-scout did. If they did they would be shut down and with good reason as it is one pathway to a dirty bomb.