Radioactive boy scout

[biostud]

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/radioactive-boy-scout

Radioactive Boy Scout
Teenager achieves nuclear fusion at home
by Stephen Ornes


fusion-device.jpgIn 2006 Thiago Olson joined the extremely sparse ranks of amateurs worldwide who have achieved nuclear fusion with a home apparatus. In other words, he built the business end of a hydrogen bomb in his basement. The plasma "star in a jar"?shown at the left?demonstrated his success.

For two years, Olson researched what he would need and scrounged for parts from eBay and the hardware store. Flanges and piping? Check. High-voltage X-ray transformer? Check. Pumps, deuterium source, neutron bubble dosimeter? Check, check, check. ?I have cross-country and track, so during those seasons I don?t have much time to work on it,? says Olson, a high school senior in Michigan. ?It?s more of a weekend project.? Last November the machine finally delivered the hallmark of success: bubbles in the dosimeter. The bubbles indicate the presence of neutrons, a by-product of fusion?an energy-releasing process in which two hydrogen nuclei crash together and form a helium nucleus. Fusion is commonplace in stars, where hydrogen nuclei fuse in superhot plasma, but temperatures that high are hard to achieve on Earth. Still, the prospect of creating all this energy while forming only nonradioactive helium and easily controlled neutrons has made harnessing fusion one of the most sought-after and heavily funded goals in sustainable energy.

Olson?s apparatus won?t work for generating commercial power because it takes more energy to run than it produces. But he has succeeded in creating a ?star in a jar,? a tiny flash of hot plasma. ?The temperature of the plasma is around 200 million degrees,? Olson says modestly, ?several times hotter than the core of the sun.?

Robert Bussard, a nuclear physicist who has spent most of his career investigating fusion for both the government and private companies, applauds Olson?s ambition. ?These kids are studying much more useful physics than what the country is spending billions on,? he says. ?It causes them to think. They?re not going down the mainstream path to oblivion.? And, aside from using high voltage and emitting low-level radiation, the machine has been deemed harmless. ?About a week ago, the department of health from Michigan called my principal,? Olson says. ?They wanted to come over and inspect it. They did that, they were impressed, and it checked out.?

seems to beat my high school projects

 

[xanis]

I love how he says, "it was more of a weekend project".

 

[KLin]

The next Oppenheimer?

 

[classy]

I was just reading this. Man I would love have him be my neighbor. He might blow us all up, but I bet he could come up with some very useful things. Just a tremendous achievement.

 

[xanis]

Originally posted by: classy
I was just reading this. Man I would love have him be my neighbor. He might blow us all up, but I bet he could come up with some very useful things. Just a tremendous achievement.

I can see it now...

"Why did the power just flicker?"

"Oh that's just our neighbor making nuclear fusion again."

 

[Jeff7]

If this even is fusion, it is only in tiny bursts, and would likely never be useful for creating full-scale fusion reactors, just as there is no use for the minute quantities of electricity produced by rubbing your feet across a carpet. Sure the spark may be impressive and hurt a bit, but it contains very little power.

Google for "fusion bubbles." There are plenty of results. This has been replicated a few times, and it seems that it's only theorized that fusion occurs in very minute amounts inside the bubbles.

Here's one. It sounds kind of similar to the claims of cold fusion a few years ago.


I love how they're going out of their way to dispel the perception that nuclear fusion is dangerous. :roll:
"Radioactive Boy Scout"
"Still, the prospect of creating all this energy while forming only nonradioactive helium..."

The public knows that fission reactions can produce powerful bombs, present a risk of meltdowns in reactors, and generates a lot of radioactive waste.
The public also hardly knows the difference between fusion and fission, and will often use the two interchangeably. But those who do know also probably know that fusion bombs are more powerful than fission bombs. Going along with the saying, "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," they'll also likely assume that fusion will present a greater risk of catastrophe in the event of a reactor problem, and that it will be even more radioactive.

Nice articles like this that put "RADIOACTIVE" and "fusion" in the title don't exactly help.

 

[KDOG]

Wow. Full ride scholarship anyone?

 

[thehstrybean]

Woa...

 

[DrPizza]

There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

 

[Imported]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

:Q wtf

 

[everman]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

Got any details on that? I'm all for pie, but a fusion reactor is a bit more impressive.

 

[TheChort]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

science fair projects aren't JUST about the project ... it's also about your presentation, organization, and showing how much you really know about the literature in support of your project.

 

[KDOG]

Originally posted by: TheChort

Originally posted by: DrPizza
There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

science fair projects aren't JUST about the project ... it's also about your presentation, organization, and showing how much you really know about the literature in support of your project.

Uh, I think freakin' nuclear fusion would beat eating apple pie anyday, but thats' just me.

 

[TheChort]

Originally posted by: KDOG

Originally posted by: TheChort

Originally posted by: DrPizza
There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

science fair projects aren't JUST about the project ... it's also about your presentation, organization, and showing how much you really know about the literature in support of your project.

Uh, I think freakin' nuclear fusion would beat eating apple pie anyday, but thats' just me.

keep in mind, we don't know anything about the projects that DrPizza mentioned

but if I were to see a project about anything that looked like it had been thrown together at the last second I would be extremely hesitant to give it first place. Students need to learn how to be organized as well.
Or if I could tell that the student knew VERY little about the literature supporting his project, I would again hold back.

Judging is based on MULTIPLE factors, not just the one

 

[FallenHero]

Originally posted by: TheChort

Originally posted by: KDOG

Originally posted by: TheChort

Originally posted by: DrPizza
There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

science fair projects aren't JUST about the project ... it's also about your presentation, organization, and showing how much you really know about the literature in support of your project.

Uh, I think freakin' nuclear fusion would beat eating apple pie anyday, but thats' just me.

keep in mind, we don't know anything about the projects that DrPizza mentioned

but if I were to see a project about anything that looked like it had been thrown together at the last second I would be extremely hesitant to give it first place. Students need to learn how to be organized as well.
Or if I could tell that the student knew VERY little about the literature supporting his project, I would again hold back.

Judging is based on MULTIPLE factors, not just the one

Somehow I doubt that someone who home built a nuclear fusion reactor just "threw it together" at the last second.

 

[DrPizza]

I probably should have hunted down some references; a homemade fusion reactor getting only second place in a science fair sounds too shentastic. Here are some links:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/984600/posts
Ooops, it wan't Apple Pie, it was Blueberry Pie.
http://www.sciserv.org/isef/results/grnd2003.asp

Physics - Presented by Intel Foundation
Intel will present Best of Category Winners with a $5,000 scholarship and a high-performance computer. Additionally, a $1,000 grant will be given to their school and the Intel ISEF Affiliated fair they represent.

Intel ISEF Best of Category Award of $5,000 for Top First Place Winner
PH053 Chaotic Fluids: An Examination of Phase Transitions in Taylor-Couette Flow
Mairead Mary McCloskey, 17, Loreto College, Coleraine, Co Derry, Northern Ireland

First Award of $3,000
PH029 Is Eating Blueberry Pie Bad for You?
Jennifer Anne D'Ascoli, 17, Academy of the Holy Names, Albany, New York

PH053 Chaotic Fluids: An Examination of Phase Transitions in Taylor-Couette Flow
Mairead Mary McCloskey, 17, Loreto College, Coleraine, Co Derry, Northern Ireland

Second Award of $1,500
PH005 The Effect of Salinity on the Production and Duration of Antibubbles
Michael J. Pizer, 14, University School of Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

PH040 Magnetoplasmadynamics: Ionization and Magnetic Field
Ray Chengchuan He, 19, Hempfield High School, Landisville, Pennsylvania

PH046 Nuclear Fusion Reactor Apparatus
Craig J. Wallace, 18, Spanish Fork High School, Spanish Fork, Utah

PH054 Electron-Phonon Interactions in Carbon Nanotubes
Edward Joesph Su, 18, William G. Enloe High School, Raleigh, North Carolina

 

[Imported]

Well, I read up on it.. the blueberry pie thing had to do with cancer research also.. Here's an article I dug out from that first link:

High school student wins for anti-cancer research

BY KAREN DIETLEIN
STAFF WRITER

It began when Jennifer D'Ascoli discovered the posibilities wrapped up in a common, succulent fruit found in muffins, pies, pastries and fruit salads: the blueberry.

While looking into cancer-fighting techniques to study for her junior-year science research project, the senior at the Academy of the Holy Names in Albany stumbled on promising anti-cancer research regarding flavonoids. Those are natural compounds found in ordinary fruits and vegetables, such as soy, cranberries and blueberries.

Her interest was sparked by research that noted that populations in Asia that incorporate cooked or fried soy products -- tofu, for example -- into their daily diet have a lower frequency of breast and prostate cancer.

Inquiring mind

"I wanted to see if the molecular structure of the flavonoids changed when cooked -- and if the new molecular structure would be what is helping to prevent the cancer," Jennifer told The Evangelist.

The project looked at two flavonoids in particular: naringenin, found in blueberries, and genistein, found in soy. She found not only that cooking both products not only changed their physical features -- for example, blueberries shift from a yellow-green color to a purple-red hue when cooked -- but also that the compound's basic molecular structure was changed.

"There is a definite molecular structure change," she said firmly, "and I believe that it helps fight cancer."

Thrills of science

Jennifer, a member of St. Helen's parish in Niskayuna, is excited by scientific research, especially in interdisciplinary fields, about subjects that might not be readily apparent or subjects masked behind the ordinary.

She thrills to results, loves to see change occur in her experiments and thrives on the hands-on involvement of work in the laboratory.

Much more boring -- but very necessary, she affirmed -- are the hours of research and data analysis that follows any lab work.

"I'll be trapped in the science library for hours at a time, trying to figure out what something means," she said. "I feel like -- 'Ugh! I need to get away from the books! Let me take some measurements!'"

Pay-off

But there are rewards for persistence: For her blueberry study, she won the $3,000 First Grand Award in Physics at the 2003 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Cleveland, Ohio.

She almost didn't make it to the pre-college competition, which invited 1,350 contestants from 35 countries. Her project won third place at the Greater Capital Region Science and Engineering Fair, and only the first two winners go. But she was offered the chance when the first-place winner decided not to attend.

Jennifer decided to take the week at a relaxed pace and to cut down on the stress that invariably crops up while defending research. Instead of stressing over notes and speeches, she tried to connect with other young people interested in science and technology. She went out to breakfast with Texas teens, for example, spoke with a contingent from Italy and talked shop with those whose projects were set up around her between judging sessions.

"I was there to have fun," she said. "I didn't expect to be winning anything."

More to come

Jennifer has big plans for the future of her project. Although researchers don't currently have a set method for making flavonoids into a anti-cancer drug or treatment, she believes the potential is there.

"It's a really great thing that we could have this natural way to fight cancer," she explained. "We could step away from chemotherapy and try to treat cancer with flavonoids. They're already in fruits and vegetables, things we can relate to."

To prove that, however, she has much more work to do, such as testing heated and unheated flavonoids on different cancer strains.

And there's no shortage in subject material for testing. According to Jennifer, there are more than 4,000 known flavonoids, in food both ordinary and exotic. She hopes to conduct research on those substances next year.

"Nobody really knows how they work right now," she said. "But I want to find out what is making them fight cancer so well."

I still think nuclear fusion sounds cooler.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The public knows that fission reactions can produce powerful bombs, present a risk of meltdowns in reactors, and generates a lot of radioactive waste.

HA! Just realized this. Fissionable materials, heavier than air. Fusionable (a word?) materials, lighter than air. An uncontained fusion event would be a MeltUP.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Originally posted by: TheChort

Originally posted by: KDOG

Originally posted by: TheChort

Originally posted by: DrPizza
There was another person who built one a few years ago for a science fair project. He LOST - came in second, beat out by a girl who did a project about eating apple pie.

science fair projects aren't JUST about the project ... it's also about your presentation, organization, and showing how much you really know about the literature in support of your project.

Uh, I think freakin' nuclear fusion would beat eating apple pie anyday, but thats' just me.

keep in mind, we don't know anything about the projects that DrPizza mentioned

but if I were to see a project about anything that looked like it had been thrown together at the last second I would be extremely hesitant to give it first place. Students need to learn how to be organized as well.
Or if I could tell that the student knew VERY little about the literature supporting his project, I would again hold back.

Judging is based on MULTIPLE factors, not just the one

I would tend to think that a kid that made nuclear fusion knew more about the literature than the people that wrote it and especially more than the people judging it.

 

[BillGates]

Too bad his parents have to pay the electricity bill.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The public knows that fission reactions can produce powerful bombs, present a risk of meltdowns in reactors, and generates a lot of radioactive waste.

HA! Just realized this. Fissionable materials, heavier than air. Fusionable (a word?) materials, lighter than air. An uncontained fusion event would be a MeltUP.

Fusion = Two nuclei combine creating one heavier nucleus + release energy according to E=mc^2

Fission = Heavy nucleus splits into small nuclei creating two or more new nuclei + radiation + heat


Fusion produces much more energy than Fission.

 

[BrownTown]

Fusion doesn't have to produce more energy by definition than fission, it is simply that fissionable decay sequences we use don't have as high a differential binding energy between products and reactants as do the fusion reactions. In fact it is of coruse true that both fusion and fission can TAKE huge amnounts of energy from the system if you are going down the slope of the binding energy chart. However, both have energy released based on the equation E=MC^2, the mass lost in a fusion reaction just happens to be larger.

EDIT: see, the energy released in a fission of a Uranium nucleus is MUCH more than what is released in a fusion reaction. The reason that nuclear fusion could produce more power per pound is that fusionable elements are so much lighter and therefore there are many more per pound. Also, if you are using the fact that fusion bombs are much more powerfull than fission bombs you should understand that tha majority of energy released by an H-bomb is still from the FISSION, not the fusion. The fusion reaction releases many more neutrons which allows the fission reaction to use a much larger percentage of the uranium before the physical forces exerted by the explosion tear the bomb apart.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: Golgatha

Originally posted by: gsellis

Originally posted by: Jeff7
The public knows that fission reactions can produce powerful bombs, present a risk of meltdowns in reactors, and generates a lot of radioactive waste.

HA! Just realized this. Fissionable materials, heavier than air. Fusionable (a word?) materials, lighter than air. An uncontained fusion event would be a MeltUP.

Fusion = Two nuclei combine creating one heavier nucleus + release energy according to E=mc^2

Fission = Heavy nucleus splits into small nuclei creating two or more new nuclei + radiation + heat


Fusion produces much more energy than Fission.

Did you bring your lunch or ride to work? What does MeltDOWN vs meltUP have to do with it.

 

[everman]

So the pie project was about cancer research, it was more politically palatable than nuclear research so she won. Geez, the kid build his own neutron generator and detectors, makes a fusion reactor, and gets beat out by cooking berries and looking at the molecular changes.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Dailytech a little late to the game?

I wonder what forum that kid hangs out at...