This has to be the single best science fair project EVER.

[hawkeye]

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,510054502,00.html

LOGAN — A widespread belief among physicists nowadays is that modern science requires squadrons of scientists and wildly expensive equipment.
Craig Wallace and Philo T. Farnsworth are putting the lie to all that.
Wallace, a baby-faced tennis player fresh out of Spanish Fork High School, had almost the entire physics faculty of Utah State University hovering (and arguing) over an apparatus he had cobbled together from parts salvaged from junk yards and charity drops.
The apparatus is nothing less than the sine qua non of modern science: a nuclear fusion reactor, based on the plans of Utah's own Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television.
The reactor sat on a table with an attached vacuum pump wheezing away. A television monitor showed what was inside: a glowing ball of gas surrounded by a metal helix.
The ball is, literally, a small sun, where an electric field forces deuteron ions (a form of hydrogen) to gather, bang together and occasionally fuse, spitting out a neutron each time fusion occurs.
"Here I am with this thing here," Wallace mused, looking at his surroundings. "Who'da thought?"
Wallace and Farnsworth are much alike. Both are (or were — Farnsworth died in 1971) tinkerers. While Wallace was in grade school, his mother got a flat tire while he was riding with her. He fixed it. For his part, Farnsworth began improvising electric motors at a young age. Both went on to bigger and better things.
"He was never motivated to take science," said Wallace's father, Allen Wallace. "It was really the tinkering that motivated him."
When Craig was a sophomore in high school, browsing the Internet he discovered that Farnsworth had come up with a way to create deuteron ion plasma, a prerequisite to fusion.
While it was not good for production of energy (the source of much embarrassment to the University of Utah in the cold fusion debacle in the late 1980s), Farnsworth's design did emit neutrons, a useful tool for commercial applications and scientific experimentation.
"He (Farnsworth) was after the Holy Grail of excess energy, but everyone agrees that it's mostly useful as a neutron generator," Allen Wallace said.
About 30 such devices exist around the country, owned by such entities as Los Alamos National Laboratories, NASA and universities. ("I bet I'm the only high school student that has one," Craig Wallace said.)
Looking at Farnsworth's plans for the first time, Craig and his father both had the same thought: Now there's a science project.
They set to work. They found a neutron detector in an Idaho Falls scrap metal yard. Craig built a neutron modulator (which slows down the emitted neutrons so they can be detected) out of a few hundred spare CDs. They found a broken turbo molecular pump lying forgotten at Deseret Industries.
Too poor to buy pricey deuterium gas, Craig bought a container of deuterium oxide, or heavy water, for 20 bucks and came up with a way to make it a gas and get rid of the accompanying oxygen by passing it over heated magnesium filings.
Not bad for a backyard amateur who considered himself more mechanic than scientist.
"I teased him that he was now officially a science geek," Allen Wallace said.
One professor Friday stood nervously away from Wallace's reactor — which is notably free from any shielding — but he needn't have worried: Wallace's detector measures 36 neutrons per minute just in background radiation from space, and the device's usual output adds only four neutrons per minute. People in airplanes absorb much more than that.
It took two years of gathering materials and six months of assembly, but the final product actually, incongruously, works.
"(This was) the day I achieved a Poisser plasma reaction," Wallace wrote next to a picture of the glowing ball. "Probably the coolest thing I have ever seen."
Others thought it was cool, too. Wallace began winning contests — local, state, national — culminating in second place in the International Intel Science and Engineering Fair last May in Cleveland. He's now beginning work on a USU physics degree.
"The whole thing combines chemistry, engineering, physics," he said. "Put them all together and you come out with something pretty sweet."
Farnsworth would have been proud.

What can I say? I think that this is one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

[The_Dude]

that's one smart kid.

[Sledge]

That's one geeky kid.

I'm not jealous...

[ironx]

that's gonna be one rich kid.

[Silvy]

Sounds pretty cool!

I'd really like to see a picture of the whole set-up though..

[GakFace]

damn.. I now feel pretty dumb

He's goin' places, thats for sure.

[bundy]

thats phenomenal.
has MIT offered a scholarship yet?

seriously, i think this is beyond geeky.
i think its very cool.

[Four Fingers]

I've got the impression his dad did most of the work. Still, that's outstanding - even for an adult.

[onetime2]

And he only got second place in the Intel fair? What got first I wonder?

[Cynthetiq]

I was gonna say what no pictures? but then I finally gave up on being link challenged and clicked it...

[Sion]

Originally posted by onetime2
And he only got second place in the Intel fair? What got first I wonder?

my thoughts exactly. what in hell could have bested THAT?

[Booboo]

Thats pretty frikkin awsome lol.

[a1t3r3g0]

Umm.. that's neat and all.. but does it serve and purpose?

[Arc101]

Umm.. that's neat and all.. but does it serve and purpose?

Yeah - it proves that NASA etc don't really need billions to do this sort of thing, just hire a couple of kids and pay them a few bucks

[viejo gringo]

Really great to see a young man do something constructive.

---and not setting around designing a virus to screw up
somones computer.

Let's hope he makes it big---he has the potential..

[Xell101]

This is pretty freiken sweet!

[sadistikdreams]

hmmmm.....

[jets]

Damn. That's cool.

[JusticeForPhat]

Amazing work, this kid is going to have no problem finding a job.

Seriously, All i want is a Mr. Fusion from back to the future. That kid needs to start working on that.

[sapiens]

That's awesome! Really smart people seek out knowledge on their own. They don't need anyone to give it to them. Want to learn about nuclear physics? Build yourself a reactor or go sit on Richard Feynman's doorstep until he teaches you, etc.

[phoenix1002]

Just don't drop it...

[manalone]

very cool.

I am slightly worried by the lack of shielding though...

[Latch]

Let's see him get it to work and have true "cold fusion".. and I'll be impressed :P

[mingusfingers]

That's awesome. Sad to say one of those cold fusion 'discoverers' came from my town.

[soopadoopa]

That's pretty dang cool. He's one of those people who'll end up changing our society and the way we do things.

[meepa]

Wow that is so awesome! I wish I had that kind of tinkering power! The coolest thing I've ever done was make a fly trap out of a bunch of pop cans. But a FUSION fly trap would be soooo much better

[Battlefield]

What year was that? Heres some winners from 2003 so you can compare:
http://www.intel.com/education/isef/2003winners.htm

[fallen_angel]

i must say i have never seen anything quite like that, its awesome and to think it was done by someone so young. just makes you wonder whats in some kids basements that actually live for that kinda stuff. . .

[battlemouth]

i need one of these sun televisions, you cant stare at it too long or sit too close to it, sheer awesomeness!

[silverback]

That he found the materials at scrap yards is pretty amazing.

[StormBerlin]

So does this mean we all get refunds on the shitload of money used by NASA when it wasn't needed?

[Jakejake]

They found a neutron detector in an Idaho Falls scrap metal yard. They found a broken turbo molecular pump lying forgotten at Deseret Industries.

As you do...

[WhiteDevil]

That is awesome. Hurrah for science! Woo!

[Slims]

Good for him. I wish I had scrap yards with that kind of stuff nearby.

[skinbag]

Never forget the accomplishments of ameteurs! Let's hope he doesn't get an itch to build a bomb.

[tinger]

That's one smart, geeky, rich kid.

[striker3303]

the kid rules

[troit]

Sure as hell beats the volcano reaction I created....

[Kush]

"Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television."

John Logie Baird..?

[erion]

Yes. Philo T. Farnsworth Invented the All-Electronic television.

http://www.invent.org/hall_of_fame/56.html

Also, that kid kicks more ass than all of NASA Combined. I especially liked the part where he couldn't afford deuterium gas so he made his own.