Episode 47: Part 1 Child Fusion Reactors & Karen Silkwood

A teenager builds a “star in a jar,” the press crowds around, and a Geiger counter clicks to life. That single image threads through our journey as we follow young makers who pushed past textbooks to light plasma, register neutrons, and force adults to decide how far curiosity should go. We open with David Hahn, the infamous “Radioactive Boy Scout,” whose improvised neutron source triggered a federal cleanup and a lifelong cautionary tale about brilliance without guardrails. Then we turn to Taylor Wilson, who hit fusion at 14 and parlayed it into award-winning detectors, threat screening tools, and bold ideas for small reactors that could power communities for decades.

What emerges is a question about access and authority. When fellowships and big-money backers swoop in, is that rocket fuel for public good or a funnel into narrow security work? We examine the promises and politics behind small modular reactors, the gap between what’s technically possible and what policy allows, and the persistent mismatch between youthful idealism and the systems that shape where inventions land. Along the way, we celebrate practical ingenuity: Jamie Edwards gets his school to fund a fusor, builds safety layers you can touch, and learns to balance vacuum, voltage, and measurement. Cesar fights leaks, files metal by hand, and proves that constraints can sharpen thinking more than any lecture.

This story isn’t about hype; it’s about agency. The internet taught these kids enough to try. Local mentors and cautious schools helped them finish. Institutions—government, industry, and philanthropy—decided what happened next. If you care about clean energy, STEM education, or the ethics of open knowledge, these lives are a map of how innovation actually moves. Hear the sparks, weigh the tradeoffs, and decide with us: should the next breakthrough be gated, or guided?

If this conversation resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review telling us where you’d draw the line between safety and openness.

FREE DOCUMENTARY
https://www.koco.com/article/karen-silkwood-nuclear-whistleblower-51-anniversary-death-oklahoma-kerr-mcgee-contamination/69416709

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

https://helena.org/members/taylor-wilson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HL1BEC024g&t=638s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tAsHGFA-74

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/09/nuclear-fusion-young-scientist-jamie-edwards-star-in-jar

https://newsforkids.net/articles/2024/09/04/16-year-old-student-builds-nuclear-fusion-reactor/

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2025/1/12-year-old-boy-who-achieved-nuclear-fusion-in-his-playroom-got-visit-from-fbi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/karen-silkwoods-sudden-death-unpacked-abc-documentary/story?id=115778837

https://www.patreon.com/InspiredEarth

https://www.instagram.com/inspiredearthofficial

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Kid Fusion
• 3:25 David Hahn’s Rise And Fallout
• 11:30 Cleanup, Military Service, And Decline
• 19:40 Taylor Wilson: Records And Recognition
• 26:30 Funding, Thiel, And Power Politics
• 33:20 Small Reactors, Big Promises

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

And confirmed by fusion researcher Richard Holt, who maintains a list of amateur scientists who have achieved fusion at home. Because Jackson achieved fusion at 1.30 pm, just two hours before his birthday, at 3.38 p.m., he was technically 12 years old, and therefore also received a Guinness World Records title for his incredible work. But his story would prove far from over, as one Saturday he was woken up by two FBI agents who made a sweep of his house with the Geiger counter to make sure there was no radiation detected from Jackson's experiments. And then we'll talk about Karen Silkwood and her story. So we're just gonna dive straight in. And I've been uh wanting to talk about this one for a long time or these sets of uh stories. I think some of them we've already talked about, but it's fine, we can put them all together and read it again. Or read some more about them. And to start off, I think I have one, two, three, three kids. Maybe four, I think three. But David Charles Hahn, uh sometimes called radioactive Boy Scout and the Nuclear Boy Scout, was an American nuclear radiation enthusiast who attempted to build a homemade nuclear reactor at the age of 17. Hahn was born October 30th, 1976 in Royal Oak, Michigan. His father, Ken Hahn, was a mechanical engineer. His mother, Patty Hahn, suffered from alcoholism and was diagnosed with depression and schizophrenia, and sent to the mental hospital when David was four. His parents divorced when he was nine and his father gained custody. He had a stepmother, Kathy Masig, and stepsister Christina after his father remarried. David's stepgrandfather, John Simms, gave the Golden Book of Chemistry experiments and encouraged his experiments in chemistry and science. David mowed other people's lawns to help fund his experiments. With one experiment he created chloroform, and as the book encouraged him to sniff the chemical, he did so and was passed out for more than an hour, according to his recollection. Which seems incredible incredibly dangerous. I can't believe they would recommend somebody to do that. That's crazy. David also loved to build fireworks and model rockets, which he altered with his own designs. As the experiments at home were becoming a problem increasingly dangerous, David was encouraged by his father to join the Boy Scouts to provide discipline and distraction from his scientific endeavors. He was fascinated by chemistry and also attempted amateur chemistry stuff, and it talks about um that and he tried to collect samples of every element on the periodic table, including radioactive ones. He later received a merit badge in atomic energy and became fascinated with the idea of creating a breeder in his home. Han diligently amassed radioactive material by collecting small amounts from household materials such as a maricesium from smoke detectors, thorium from camping lanterns, mantles, radium from old clocks he had obtained from antique stores, and tritium from gun sites. His reactor was a bored-out block of lead and used lithium from$1,000 worth of purchased batteries to purify the thorium ash using a Bunsen burner. Han ultimately hoped to create a breeder reactor using low-level isotopes to transform samples of thorium and uranium into fissile isotopes. His homemade neutron source was often incorrectly referred to as a nuclear reactor, but it emitted measurable levels of radiation, likely exceeding 1,000 times normal background radiation. Alarmed by this, David Hahn began to dismantle his experiments, but in a chance encounter, police discovered his activities. I think if I remember correctly, they just like stumbled into the garage somehow. They were like looking for something or some but somehow they I can't remember how. Somehow they ended up there and and went into the garage and they were like, what is this? Alarmed by this, David Hahn began to dismantle the experien the experiments, but in a chance police encounter they discovered his activities, which triggered a federal radiological emergency response team involving the FBI and Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Which, geez, that would be embarrassing. On June 26, 1995, the EPA, having designated Han's mother's property, a super fun site, hazardous material cleanup site, dismantled the shed and placed its contents in steel barrels, which were later buried as low-level radioactive waste in Utah. Unbeknownst to officials, his mother, fearful that she would lose her house if the full extent of radiation was known, had already collected the majority of the radioactive material David Hahn had hidden in the house and thrown it away in the conventional garbage. Hahn refused medical evaluation for radiation exposure. The EPA scientists believe Hahn's life was expectancy may have been shortened due to the exposure to radioactivity, particularly since he spent long times in the small enclosed shed with relatively large amounts of radioactive material and only minimal safety precautions. But he refused their recommendation that he be examined at the Enrico Fermi nuclear generating station. This was also probably from a fear that they would use the results of such examination to further his trouble. His father and stepmother first encouraged him to attend Macomb Community College. He enrolled in metallurgy. Eventually he was encouraged to join the military. He enlisted in the Navy and assigned a nuclear power aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, as an undesignated seaman, pay grade E3. After a four-year tour, he achieved Interior Communications Specialist with the rank of Petty Officer, third class, pay grade E4. After his time on the USS Enterprise, Han enlisted in the Marine Corps and stationed in North Carolina. He eventually received the rank of Lance Corporal and was honorably discharged on medical grounds and returned to Michigan. FBI investigation. On April 23, 2007, the FBI received a leading regard a lead regarding Hahn's alleged possession of a second neutron source in his freezer. Contacted via telephone, Hahn insisted that he was not in possession of radioactive material. The FBI decided no imminent terrorist threat was present was present, but decided to attempt a personal interview. During an interview at an FBI office on May 16, 2007, investigators questioned questions touched on a variety of topics, such as flyers that Han had distributed promoting his book and upcoming film, theft of tires and rims from a vehicle prior to his Navy service, a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, and a few less significant topics. It sounds like they're trying to blackmail him. FBI agents then interviewed an individual whose identity was not released, who stated that Han was using cocaine heavily, was not taking his prescribed medication, was paranoid about people that he claimed had the ability to shock his genitals with their mind, I guess like a psychic attack or something, and had possibly been visited by prostitutes. The individual also stated that he believed Hahn was still trying to build a reactor and was collecting radium. He stated that he did not believe Hahn had any intentions of hurting anyone, but was concerned about his mental state. Larceny of smoke detectors. On August first, 2007, Hahn was charged with larceny in Clinton Township, Michigan, for allegedly removing a number of smoke detectors from the halls of his apartment building. His intention was to obtain a marasucium from them. In his mugshot, his face was covered in sores, which investigators believe could have been ex from exposure to radioactive materials. Or, you know, if this guy's doing drugs and he may also have sores from that, too. I mean that's kind of a jump, but whatever. During a circuit court hearing, Han pleaded guilty to attempting attempted larceny of a building. The court's online docket said prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to time, served, and enter an inpatient treatment facility. Under terms of the plea, the original charge of larceny of a building would be dismissed. Scheduled for October 4th, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail for attempted larceny. Court records said that his sentence would be delayed six months while Hahn underwent medical treatment in the psychiatric unit of Macomb County Jail. On September 27, 2016, at the age of 39, Hahn died in his hometown of Shelby Charter Township, Michigan. His death was ruled an accidental result of intoxication from the combined effects of alcohol, fentanyl, and definephydramine. Whatever. The medical examiner's report indicated a blood alcohol concentration of point zero or point four zero four milligrams. Um so yeah, then it says that there was like a bunch of shows and books and stuff written uh with him as in mind. So now we'll move on. That's like the original one. It's kind of an infamous story because he kind of had a bad reaction, but it's you know, uh he was like a genius. I think it also kind of shows the link between uh sometimes some of these child prodigies also suffer from mental illness. Uh it sounds like he was, you know, fit into that category. But not all of them do. So let's move on to Taylor Wilson, and this is from Helena.org. Taylor Wilson is a 24-year-old inventor, scientist, and entrepreneur at the time of this writing. At age 14 in his home, state of Arkansas, Taylor became the youngest person in history to produce nuclear fusion. He hadn't slowed down since. Wilson is currently working in medicine, nuclear security, chemistry, and nuclear fission. His in his reactor in his parents' garage, he was able to reach a temperature of 40 times as hot as the sun. Immediately, Taylor was all over the press. Numerous stories were written about his breakthrough, including popular science article The Boy Who Played with Fusion, which subsequently became a book. After a bidding war in Hollywood, Fox Studios slash Chernin bought the story's rights to adapt into a future film with Jeff Nichols, his writing and directing. I don't know anything about that. I mean, I may we somebody needs to Google that. I'm not very good with pop culture, but I've never heard of that movie. Especially not Jeff Nichols. Or is it Jeff Nicholson or Jeff Nichols? I guess Jeff Nichols. I was thinking somebody else. Taylor has won numerous awards, including first place at Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and the Intel Young Scientist Award. His project countering nuclear terrorism, novel active and passive techniques for detecting nuclear threats, caught the attention of the US government and military. He went on to develop several groundbreaking nuclear technologies with applications in security, medicine, and energy. He is also the founder of several companies which commercializes these inventions. One of his earliest inventions was a radiation detector, which typically costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Taylor's detector costs only hundreds of dollars and is used in ports and containers around the world. It's interesting. Here, get this, get ready for this, guys. When I first saw this, this absolutely blew my mind. In 2012, Taylor was awarded a Peter Teal Fellowship where he received a$100,000 grant to forego college and focus on his inventions. He has spoken about a technology, science, and nuclear security around the world, including twice at TED Talks, NATO, Presidential Libraries, the United Nations, Google, SpaceX, and many more. He's been featured on 60 Minutes and was included on an energy segment on Vice on HBO alongside Elon Musk. So they put this guy up along with Elon Musk. The Peter Thiel Fellowship. Wow. Peter Thiel is the billionaire who has manufactured JD Vance. And he also sponsored JD Vance in a similar way. And he's the one that wants to build these techno cities in Greenland. Uh that remember Trump was saying we were gonna invade Greenland. Peter Thiel wants to build techno cities in Greenland that are ethno futurist ethno cities that are uh inhabited by test tube, white nationalist, hyper intelligent babies. That's the vision. That's what Peter Thiel, and I know this sounds so out there and and sci-fi, but this is actually a real thing. I need to make an episode all about that, and I've been meaning to, but I've just been trying to figure out how and to tie in a whole bunch of different stuff into that because this is really big. Like even here, I just stumbled upon this randomly. In 2012, he was awarded the Peter Thiel Fellowship. That's how long ago Peter Thiel has been working on this stuff. Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. Remember in the previous episodes when I was talking about how it seems like with Fusion only the big tech uh Broligarc type figures are the only people that have access to this. And you see here, Peter Thiel came and swallowed him up. He's like, No, don't go to college, you're mine now, and you're gonna do all this stuff for us. And uh the kid is is just a kid. He doesn't know nobody knew who Peter Thiel was back then. At least I didn't. I mean, I'm sure there were some people, but at least Peter Thiel's starting to be exposed now, but he's one of the people behind Palantir that's trying to make stable coin, working with the CIA, that's involved with JD Vance, that wants to do all this ethnic cleansing, and wants to uh go into like fiefdoms and smaller city states, going back to city-states and tech like that are highly specialized and technological that can withstand climate change. It's just very out there stuff, but it's but they're racist type people, and these are the people who are in charge of all of our big tech. And also probably the people that are uh looking at all of this ET technology or or this like behind the scenes technology as well. They're starting to get this stuff, and that's the plan. But this when I stumbled upon this Peter Thiel thing, dude, that blew my mind. Absolutely crazy. If you don't know about this guy, you need to know more about him. Uh absolutely bizarre. Just you can't make this stuff up. But uh, so let's keep on reading. Currently, Taylor is building a small nuclear fission reactor that has the potential to fundamentally disrupt the energy landscape. With a passion for the history of science and technology, Taylor's mission is to inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers to dream big and use technology to make the world a better better place. And this is like an old, old article. It's like a 10-year-old article, at least. Absolutely insane. Imagine if we actually would have had a world that did that, and instead they just trapped this kid, I bet. And like I'm sure he does a lot, and they they also gave him a lot of money to where he can do stuff, but ideologically, they've he's working for them. He's working for the dark side, and he doesn't even know it, I don't think. Or may have some clue. I'm not sure. This is 2013, so let's listen to a little bit of this guy, and I have to speed it up to try to avoid copyright. So let's uh listen to this for a little bit. It's gonna be pretty short.

SPEAKER_00: 18:18

Oh, well, you launched this thing and it's radioactive in the space, and what about accidents? Uh but we launched plutonium batteries all the time. Everybody was really excited about curiosity, and that had this big plutonium battery on board that has plutonium-238, which actually has a higher specific activity than the low-enriched uranium fuel of these molten salt reactors, which means that the effects would be negligible because you launch it cold. And when it gets into space is where you actually activate this reactor. So I'm really excited. I think that I've designed this reactor here that can be an innovative source of energy, provide power for all kinds of neat scientific applications, and I'm really prepared to do this. Um I graduated high school in May and I graduated high school in May and I decided that I was gonna start up a company to commercialize these technologies that I've developed, these revolutionary detectors for scanning cargo containers in these systems to produce medical isotopes. Um, but I want to do this, and I've slowly been building up a team of some of the most incredible people I've ever had the chance to work with, and I'm really prepared to make this a reality. And I think, I think that looking at the technology, this will be cheaper than cheaper than or the same price as natural gas. And you don't have to refuel it for 30 years, which is an advantage for the developing world. And um, I'll just I'll just say one more maybe philosophical thing to end with, which is weird for a scientist, but um I think there's something really poetic about using nuclear power to propel us to the stars. Um, because the stars are giant fusion reactors. They're giant nuclear cauldrons in the sky. The energy that I'm able to talk to you today, while it was converted to chemical energy in my food, originally came from a nuclear reaction. And so there's something poetic about, in my opinion, perfecting nuclear fuse fission and using it as a future source of innovative energy. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 19:54

So here he's talking about small nuclear fission reactors, which is what my last episode was kind of about as well, the SMRs. So this is a kid talking about twelve years ago SMRs. And he had figured it out just on his own. And did you hear him when he said this is a perfect opportunity for developing nations? Oh, you sweet summer child. You think that Peter Thiel, the guy who gave you all this money, is gonna let you develop third world I mean I would like that. I would love that, but that's obviously has it happened? Has it happened? It's been twelve years since this kid had this dream and got that money and has it happened. What that shows right there that Peter Thiel is a black hole of energy and money and that like and technology and that people like him are hoarding this stuff, and that kids like this want to give it out. He wanted to get it out, he just said it, and it still hasn't happened. Absolutely insane. Instead, they had him working on uh like national security stuff. Okay, and so here we have uh that was Taylor Wilson, right? So here we have Jamie Edwards, who has like almost no um information out there about him, hardly, like, other than this video, which is 11 years old. So this is a let two years after the one we just watched. How I built a nuclear reactor at the age of 13.

SPEAKER_01: 21:31

Nuclear power. I guess this is what most people think of when it comes to nuclear power. Well, for me, this is what I think of. Or more specifically, this. But before I tell you about that, let me tell you how all this started. Even as a young kid, I was always asking questions. Questions to my mom, my dad, teachers, but eventually they weren't able to answer my questions anymore. So I turned to the internet to find some answers. It was on the internet that I came across this guy, Taylor Wilson, who'd created nuclear fusion at 14. That was like wow, fusion in the background. I had to find out more. So once station online, I came across fusion.net. A group of amateur scientists who were building these plants with fusers. It was that worked out that it was actually possible for me to build one of these. I figured it cost around£2,000. That's my problem. I didn't have£2,000. And I was gonna have to write the money myself. So I started writing to some local nuclear labs, big engineering companies, universities, but you know what, for some reason they didn't want to give£2,000 to a 13-year-old trying to build a nuclear reactor. No idea why. So instead of asking a school science teacher if you could help me with my project. She suggested we tried a head teacher. Dr. Dragon's Dentile Peter, Mr. Hogan, and managed to persuade into power 2,000 pounds. So I'm with the school credit card if I turned to eBay. I bought plants from all over the world, police applies from the USA, resisted from Hong Kong, and vacuum pumped from Lithuania. I built this. My teacher manager. So however, I couldn't get everything from eBay. The tension conditions were a little restricted. Even the specialist gas applied things in turn. They wanted to know why exactly a 13-year-old schoolboy from Lancashire wanted 10 liters of deuterium gas. Anyway, this is the neutron detector. It's a key part of the reactor. I used it to tell me if the reaction has actually happened or not. However, they're not easy to get hold of. I have to call everyone on you to find someone who might know someone who might just happen to know someone else who actually has one of these. In the end, a local university let me this one. High voltage power supply was one of the most expensive parts. But when it arrived from the USA, it didn't work. Even to this day, I haven't figured out why. But luckily, a local Switch gear company not only let me the kids to use it, they also taught me how to use it safely. There's so much about safety. Apparently, there's some concern about letting a 13-year-old lose with a nuclear reactor in school. Not sure why. One of the conditions was that to be able to two meters away from the reactor while he was in operation. Slight problem. So but thanks to the school state department and some complex engineering, we made these. There's also the problem that my twist reactor while he was in operation. So we made a high-tech chicken white cage and put it on the reactor so I couldn't touch it. There's also the problem about high-inity neutron radiation coming out the reactor. This is my solution. My twisted fish type. Minus the fish you called. We filled them with the boron solution type as a moderator and absorber of the neutrons. And finally, just in case I managed to electrocute myself, we made this. It is indeed a book made of all bike energy cubes in case I managed to electrocute myself and needed rescuing. So the big dead comes. I might mention a little something to Mr. Hogan about the possibilities of Pia from school. I was only thinking the local paper, but press from all over the place turned up. So I had everything set up, the cameras were ready, my hook was at the ready, and then we switched on the reactor. The first thing I did was pump down the chamber and apply the high voltage. That's when I achieved this. Plasma. A key step in producing fusion. I played with this for a while until I was confident I was getting the balance right between power and vacuum. And then all I had to do was up the voltage and added a tiny bit of justium gaps. I achieved this. A reading on the neutron detector. I'd done it. It was amazing. All my hard work had paid off. But now, as a young scientist, I now need to go back to the experiment and bit again. Because as you all know, in science, we need to repeat our experiments and duplicate our results. And that's my current focus. But none of this would have happened if it wasn't for a science teacher who believed in the dreams of her pupils, and a head teacher that was willing to take a risk to give me the opportunity. So to any young scientist out there, no matter how young, nothing is ever too big for you to try. All you need is curiosity, determination, and an open mind. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 25:23

So he got inspired by the last guy we just watched. So this is like a chain of inspiration, which is pretty fascinating. Here we have The Guardian, which is a 10-year-old article. Uh Jamie Edwards made history when he built a working nuclear fusion reactor at home. Uh this was pretty hard to find. I had to I I I don't know why I had to dig so hard to find this. He said that the moment came on March 5th last year when Jamie Edwards, then 13, flicked the switch and waited with a bated breath. Seeing the purple glow was the best part. As the neutron detector confirmed it, Edward knew he'd been he'd become the world's youngest fusioneer. What I've done, it's the exact same process that happens on the sun. Basically by creating a vacuum in a chamber, filling it with deuterium, a heavy isotope of hydrogen, and then running an extremely high voltage through it, Edward was able to encourage two hydro two hydrogen atoms to smash together into each other and fuse to create helium. It's the process that keeps stars from going. And this is the same thing well a s not the same thing, but a similar process as what the uh Quantum Fusion Corporation article said that they were doing was a similar type of thing. Only I think they said they were using low voltage, which was the most bizarre part. It's this process that keeps the stars going, says Edward. So I've recreated the same process and a box about the size of a jar. You could call it a star in a jar. Sitting with Edwards, a pupil at Pennyworth Priori Academy and Preston, you'd be hard pressed to guess at his achievements. Under the surface though, there's just a hint. He's become accustomed to his media appearances, as well he might. At the age of 14, now he's already an old hand at CERN, given TED Talks, and appeared at the David Letterman show. And that's all within the last year. With ambitions to become an engineer or nuclear physicist, there seems to be little that can hold him back. When he's younger, he'd troll car boot sales and charity shops for uranium glass. It's just green glass, but if you put a UV light on it, it will glow bright alien green. And it's sort of radioactive because it's the uranium that gives it its color. He saved up to buy a Geiger counter from the US. But it was watching videos on YouTube that eventually led him to giving a pitch to his headmaster for the funding to build a nuclear fusion reactor in his laboratory. After securing 2000 Euro, he scoured eBay for parts to piece together, and with a little help from local universities and labs, he finally completed it six months later. His headmaster was concerned about safety. There was a chance that I could be electrocuted by high voltage power, and then probably the chance of the vacuum chamber imploding because of the forces on it. But quite a minimal aspect to it was the radiation. And yeah, so that's we've already heard all of that. Uh except for I was thinking that maybe I could make a handheld laser cutter, so I've been looking into really high-powered lasers, which is uh another method of fusion that I've talked about, uh the like an ion laser uh fusion. That's what they were saying that they could uh just start and stop the reaction with a laser. So like instantly stopping the fusion reaction. Just in case, I mean, I don't know if anything could happen, but I don't think so. But they could stop it instantly. Which is interesting. And here we go. Article was published a year ago. This is on Newsforkids.net. Sixteen-year-old student builds nuclear fusion reactor September 4th, 2004, Cambridge, England. Cesar Min Sorini, which I'm pretty sure I've already read about this kid before on the uh podcast, but it's worth mentioning again. Recently graduated from the Sixth Form School, which is equivalent to high school in England with excellent grades, but he was probably more excited about the success he had a previous year, building a working nuclear fusion reactor at the age of sixteen. Cesar grew up in Italy, but he's been going to school at Cardiff Sixth Form College in Cambridge, England for the past two years. His focus was on math, chemistry, and physics. And it shows him. Working on a computer. Caesar's mother is an architect and his father is an electronic engineer. As a child, Caesar became interested in electronics. He loved to experiment. He learned to program computers and devices like the Arduino Arduino and Raspberry Pi. He also worked with the 3D printer. At Cardiff, Caesar was allowed to choose an extra area of study. After seeing a video about someone building a fusion reactor, then notice how this is all just from people watching videos on YouTube. Caesar decided he wanted to build one too. The school wasn't so excited about the idea, but Cesar worked to persuade his teachers. Finally, after a complete safety review with an extra advisor offering to help him out, the school agreed. And this is a picture of like different parts of it. Here, let me zoom it in for anybody watching. Because it's probably really tiny. CSAR was a strong student, but his regular classes weren't teaching him how to build a fusion reactor. To learn this, he spent countless hours doing research, looking up information on the internet, and watching videos. We're living in an age where everything is available just by searching. When he faced a problem, he would read, watch 10 or 15 videos, and then go to tackle the problem. He also joined a website where he got advice from scientists with more experience. Step by step, working long hours with his physics teacher and advisor, Cesar built the reactor. Last June, at the very end of school year, the reactor was finished. And this is him smiling with it all done. Looks pretty well done. One important step to building a fusion reactor is to achieve plasma. That's when atoms are so excited and heated up that they gain or lose electrons, creating a glowing gas called plasma. But Cesar still couldn't get the reactor to achieve plasma. A small a special piece of metal that was supposed to fit perfectly in the device didn't fit well. The seal kept leaking. Finally, Cesar and others decided to try filing down the piece of metal by hand. That failed four times. The team was almost ready to give up, but the next time the seal held and the reactor worked, creating plasma. Caesar would barely believe his eyes. It worked, he cried excitedly. And I guess this is a picture seen the picture of plasma seen through the viewport on Caesar's fusion reactor. It's just like a circular piece of metal with like nuts on it and a purple glow in the middle. Which is interesting. Over a year has passed since then. Caesar continued to improve the reactor. He's built complicated devices to control the pressure and to better see and understand what's going on inside the reactor. He's one of the youngest students to have built such an advanced fusion reactor, but for Caesar it wasn't just about the reactor, it was also about learning by doing things and making connections with other people doing similar things. College is the next step. For Caesar, perhaps in England, perhaps in Italy, no matter where he goes, he'll probably continue to change people's ideas about how much young people can achieve. One problem Caesar faced was money. The school approved his project, but they only gave him 25% of the money needed. Caesar says not having enough money meant he had to be very creative, and as a result, he wound up learning much more. Which you kind of hear that in other cases as well. That you have to be more crafty and creative when you're uh more poor and have less resources, and you end up being smarter as a result of it. Twelve-year-old boy who achieved nuclear fusion in his playroom got a visit from the FBI, published twenty-eighth, January, twenty twenty-five.