Young scientist Jamie Edwards in atomic fusion record
5 March 2014 Last updated at 14:45 GMT
A 13-year-old boy from Preston has become the youngest person ever to successfully carry out atomic fusion.
Jamie Edwards built a nuclear reactor before successfully smashing two hydrogen atoms together, making helium through nuclear fusion.
Danny Savage reports.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
Thomas Paine
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten."
Ecclesiastes 9:5 (KJV)
He's far from being the first - everything you need to do is out there and done before by a growing hobby community http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
He's just the youngest (to date) who built it.
edit: I do not want to belittle his effort, the kid must be clever to get this done, but he doesn't need to be a genious. He basically read a lot of how-tos and managed to build his own without electrocuting himself. (high voltage needed)
Fusion itself isn't that hard to do - the problem is making use of the energy and getting everything to a net positive...
A minute's thought suggests that the very idea of this is stupid. A more detailed examination raises the possibility that it might be an answer to the question "how could the Germans win the war after the US gets involved?" - Captain Seafort, in a thread proposing a 1942 'D-Day' in Quiberon Bay
