12-Year-Old Texas Schoolboy Builds a Nuclear Fusion Reactor at Home

'I loved the project, but I also kinda hated it,' the schoolboy confessed.

PUBLISHED 7 HOURS AGO

Aidan McMillan spent most of his Sundays at Dallas Makerspace designing, prototyping, building, and testing the nuclear fusion over the last year. (Cover Image Source: Launchpad)

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, take a step back!” Aiden McMillan’s mother exclaimed in horror. “Tell me exactly what could go wrong and how it could go wrong and make sure it doesn’t go wrong,” she asked him. But seemingly, the 12-year-old Aiden already had his share of all the things that could go wrong. It was the time when things were beginning to get right. “We got neutrinos,” he shouted with euphoria. Two years of hard work, legions of setbacks, and cesspools of adjustments and safety checks had finally yielded the fruit. It was the end of Aiden’s journey, one he undertook to craft a nuclear fusion reactor in his parents' backyard, according to a report by NBC 5 Dallas Fort Worth.

Nuclear fusion, as the name suggests, is a process that involves the “fusion” of two light atomic nuclei that combine to form a single, heavier nucleus, releasing tremendous amounts of energy in the process. According to an explanation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it is the same chemical reaction that keeps the Sun going day after day. A nuclear fusion reactor designed in a laboratory on Earth is like bottling up a star in a bottle and using it to derive energy until it runs out of fuel. The reaction happens in a state of matter called plasma, an extremely hot, charged gas made of positively charged ions and free-moving electrons.

When the temperature gets too hot, it strips away these electrons from their outer shells. Electrons start coming closer to each other, and soon enough the attractive forces between them overcome the electrical repulsions. When this happens, they fuse together. Neutrons released from their fusion slam on the surrounding lithium walls, which heat up and emit enormous heat outwards that scientists can then harness to produce electricity, operate turbines, or extract power.

Illustration showing the process of nuclear fusion (Image Source: International Atomic Energy Agency)

For Aiden, the story began when he was just eight years old. Curiosity gripped him, and he spent two years poring over the textbooks of nuclear physics, grasping the nitty-gritty of the fusion process. With long hours of trial and error, problem-solving, and feedback from his seniors at the Dallas Independent School District, he finally started assembling the machine he had envisioned. "I mean, I loved the project, but I also kinda hated it," the schoolboy confessed. His enthusiasm was fueled with support from Launchpad, a non-profit makerspace in West Dallas, designed to help students pursue ambitious science and engineering projects. Today, Aiden is the “youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion.” The process, he said, wasn’t easy but was both rewarding and frustrating.

It, however, wasn’t driven by ambition or desire for personal gain, Aiden said. "It doesn't make me jump higher. It doesn't make me write faster. It doesn't do anything for me, and to be honest, it's really just a project of interest, but in the grand scheme of things, like fusion as a whole, in my opinion, is the energy of the future," he shared. Given the scope of fusion energy in the future, he is currently seeking recognition from Guinness World Records.

More on Green Matters

Scientists Found One Food That Will Save Humanity in the Event of an Apocalyptic Nuclear War

NASA Plans to Set First Nuclear Reactor on the Moon — But Two Major Countries Are Also in the Race

China’s 'Artificial Sun' Sets Fusion World Record that Scientists Previously Considered Impossible