The new Einstein?

https://tech.yahoo.com/science/articles/teenager-makes-groundbreaking-invention-quest-110000941.html

Kid began making a nuclear fusion reactor at age 8.. finished at age 11. Made it for $20k. It works

He just rebuilt it himself at age 12 in front of scientists for their verification.

I'm calling it. He's the next Einstein.

Thoughts?

Does it make more energy than it consumes?

Einstein unified and discovered unknown physical properties that govern the universe. Let's see what this kid can do first. To paraphrase the words of Bill Parcells, let's not give him a Nobel just quite yet.

A tabletop fusor. Not to disparage anyone's work but... old news.

And if it was a deuterium-deuterium reaction as described, unlikely he actually got fusion. With devices like this it's hard to tell when you get fusion because if you're generating enough neutrons to detect with simple instruments you've got a potential radiation hazard that's going to require the full suite of safeguards and protection, and a minor isn't going to be involved.

The way people have succeeded with this in the past is to add some tritium scavenged from gun sights. But they would have caught hell if they did that. You know, something about guns.

An engineering feat more than a scientific one

Quote:

I'm calling it. He's the next Einstein.

If he's Einstein, who is this kid?

from 2018

Quote: Calder

Quote:

I'm calling it. He's the next Einstein.

If he's Einstein, who is this kid?

from 2018
link to original post

Interesting. IDK.

But the article I linked to says he is in Guinness as well.

Maybe it's all fake news.

I'm always a little bothered by stories about kids doing amazing feats without knowing how much the parents were involved. The journalist writing the story of course willingly goes along with the theme 'the kid did it'. Sells better. Perhaps the youngster deserves a lot of credit, we'd never know ... at a minimum we have to assume wealthy parents gave enormous support in every way.

There are some recent startups where teenagers started billion dollar companies. "Mercor, hitting a $10 billion valuation [creating] the youngest self-made billionaires in history.... the $1.8B telehealth company Medvi built by two brothers, and 19-year-old Samir Vasavada’s $1B fintech firm, Vise." [previous quoting googlebot] I saw on CNBC about Aaru, started by college dropouts and while teenagers, uses AI for focus group work excluding actual real people, now worth more than a billion as well. This last one has a claim in article below that they “steadfastly refused” any financial assistance from their families. To that I would have to say the initial help they got to get started on this kind of path was obviously monumental anyway

https://www.wsj.com/business/ai-startup-aaru-young-founders-35da7f87 .

The kid made a Farnsworth device, invented in 1961. In principle it's like a high voltage (>10 KV) toaster, its an electron beam device that accelerates electrons to greater than 10kev. To make it more efficient it is configured in a spherical array.

It is by no means a break-even energy device. Its more akin to an accelerator. You can accelerate Uranium ions into a uranium target and achieve nuclear fission one atom at a time - which is handy for studying the properties of nuclear fission but it is not a nuclear reactor. Similarly the fusor is an electrostatic device which may create a detectable fusion reaction once in a great while, useful for research.

Its still extraordinary what the young kid did - he might be more of a Nikolai Tesla or an Elon Musk. No telling what the kid can do. But Einstein was a brilliant theorist so suggesting he's a young version of Einstein doesn't make sense. Like suggesting that Cooper Flagg is a young Usain Bolt. Apples and oranges.

P.S. A High voltage device is an extremely hazardous piece of equipment. The kid must have had adult supervision.

Quote: odiousgambit

I'm always a little bothered by stories about kids doing amazing feats without knowing how much the parents were involved. The journalist writing the story of course willingly goes along with the theme 'the kid did it'. Sells better. Perhaps the youngster deserves a lot of credit, we'd never know ... at a minimum we have to assume wealthy parents gave enormous support in every way.

There are some recent startups where teenagers started billion dollar companies. "Mercor, hitting a $10 billion valuation [creating] the youngest self-made billionaires in history.... the $1.8B telehealth company Medvi built by two brothers, and 19-year-old Samir Vasavada’s $1B fintech firm, Vise." [previous quoting googlebot] I saw on CNBC about Aaru, started by college dropouts and while teenagers, uses AI for focus group work excluding actual real people, now worth more than a billion as well. This last one has a claim in article below that they “steadfastly refused” any financial assistance from their families. To that I would have to say the initial help they got to get started on this kind of path was obviously monumental anyway

https://www.wsj.com/business/ai-startup-aaru-young-founders-35da7f87 .
link to original post

Or the story of William James Sidis, touted as the smartest person ever.

Odd that his highly educated parents never seem to be far from any documented achievements of his youth, and for all those later in his life that are claimed but not documented- there always seems to be some "the dog ate it" reason why he didn't follow through and why there's no evidence.

Oh, and Paul Morphy.