[ RadSafe ] Reactor in the Basement!

[Flanigan, Floyd]

Sounds to me like this kid got a whole lot of photons. Enough applied
voltage in that environment seems like it would cause a flash ... but
not neutrons.

Floyd W. Flanigan B.S.Nuc.H.P.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of james.g.barnes at att.net
Sent: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 4:08 PM
To: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Reactor in the Basement!

Actually, this raises two issues I've always wondered about:

1)  "A few x-rays:"  I have always thought that energetic fusion
generated intense x- and gamma ray flux.  Is that true?

2)  Similarly, always though fusion resulted in intense neutron
emission.  Is that correct?

Jim Barnes


-------------- Original message from cehn at aol.com: -------------- 


> TEEN GOES NUCLEAR: He creates fusion in his Oakland Township home 
> 
> November 19, 2006 
> BY GINA DAMRON 
> (Detroit) FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER 
> 
> On the surface, Thiago Olson is like any typical teenager. 
> He's on the cross country and track teams at Stoney Creek High School
in 
> Rochester Hills. He's a good-looking, clean-cut 17-year-old with a
3.75 grade 
> point average, and he has his eyes fixed on the next big step:
college. But to 
> his friends, Thiago is known as "the mad scientist." 
> In the basement of his parents' Oakland Township home, tucked away in
an area 
> most aren't privy to see, Thiago is exhausting his love of physics on
a project 
> that has taken him more than two years and 1,000 hours to research and
build -- 
> a large, intricate machine that , on a small scale, creates nuclear
fusion. 
> Nuclear fusion -- when atoms are combined to create energy -- is "kind
of like 
> the holy grail of physics," he said. In fact, on www.fusor.net, the
Stoney Creek 
> senior is ranked as the 18th amateur in the world to create nuclear
fusion. So, 
> how does he do it? 
> Pointing to the steel chamber where all the magic happens, Thiago said
on Friday 
> that this piece of the puzzle serves as a vacuum. The air is sucked
out and into 
> a filter. Then, deuterium gas -- a form of hydrogen -- is injected
into the 
> vacuum. About 40,000 volts of electricity are charged into the chamber
from a 
> piece of equipment taken from an old mammogram machine. As the machine
runs, the 
> atoms in the chamber are attracted to the center and soon -- ta da --
nuclear 
> fusion. Thiago said when that happens, a small intense ball of energy
forms. 
> He first achieved fusion in September and has been perfecting the
machine he 
> built in his parents' garage ever since. 
> This year, Thiago was a semifinalist for the Siemens Foundation's
National 
> Research Competition. He plans to enter the Science and Engineering
Fair of 
> Metropolitan Detroit, which is in March, in hopes of qualifying to be
in the 
> Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in New Mexico in May.

> To his mom and dad, he's still reminiscent of the 5-year-old who
toiled over a 
> kid-friendly chemistry set and, then at age 9, was able to change the
battery in 
> his older brother's car. Now, in a small room in the basement, Thiago
has set 
> up a science lab -- where bottles marked "potassium hydroxide" and
"methanol" 
> sit on shelves and a worn, old book, titled "The Atomic Fingerprint:
Neutron 
> Activation Analysis" piled among others in the empty sink. 
> Thiago's mom, Natalice Olson, initially was leery of the project, even
though 
> the only real danger from the fusion machine is the high voltage and
small 
> amount of X-rays emitted through a glass window in the vacuum chamber
-- through 
> which Olson videotapes the fusion in action. But, she wasn't really
surprised, 
> since he was always coming up with lofty ideas. "Originally, he wanted
to build 
> a hyperbolic chamber," she said, adding that she promptly said no.
But, when he 
> came asking about the nuclear fusion machine, she relented. 
> "I think it was pretty brave that he could think that he was capable
to do 
> something so amazing," she said. 
> Thiago's dad, Mark Olson, helped with some of the construction and
electrical 
> work. To get all of the necessary parts, Thiago scoured the Internet,
buying 
> items on eBay and using his age to persuade manufacturers to give him
discounts. 
> The design of the model came from his own ideas and some suggestions
from other 
> science-lovers he met online. 
>
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