With a small setup and full talent in his parents ’home playground, Jackson Oswalt has entered the Guinness World Records as the nuclear person in the world. A few hours before he turned 13, Jackson was able to mix two deuterium atoms together in a small tabletop fuse, built entirely by him. A fuser is a device that uses an electric field to heat ions at high temperatures capable of facilitating nuclear synthesis. Plenty of energy to draw and insane temperatures make an impressive feat on homemade fusers, but there a rich online community that makes this possible.
In experiments at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, Jackson used his fuser, a stable isotope of hydrogen, to attempt atomic synthesis in the collision of the atoms of deuterium. “I have been able to use electricity to accelerate deuterium with two atoms so that they fuse together into atoms of helium 3, it also releases a neutron that can heat water and start a steam engine that produces electricity,” Jackson said. Explain in the Guinness World Records video below. You may think that building a machine capable of nuclear fusion in your family home is the best idea. When you can go to anything, Jackson, now 15, is very aware of the dangers “Making fusers is a very dangerous process, mostly because the furnace is used in high furnaces. I need to take some precautions like wearing gloves to protect it,” he said.
The fuser must not be too small – according to Jackson, the interior temperature can reach 100 million degrees Kelvin. The future of young physicists is bright as this year Guinness World Records 2021 edition appears for an achievement achieved at the age of 12. Fusers are becoming commonplace as an accessible way for hobbyists to enter nuclear fusion. However, it not just people like Jackson who use them – they have commercial applications. These used by some medical companies to create therapeutic isotopes, which have a wide range of uses for diagnosing and testing the source of neutrons, as well as DaimlerChrysler aerospace.
Sadly, fusors will not see commercial use to address the world’s clean energy needs. A normal fusion neutron cannot produce flux that would enable a fusion reactor, and the power input surpasses the potential energy output as far as technology stands. Yet, a new generation of scientists involved in nuclear physics pushes us one step further into a brighter future.
