Your reminder that a kid was more productive in Covid lockdowns than you.
Aiden McMillan has spent the past 4 years researching and modelling nuclear fusion. A passion that started at 8-years-old during Covid lockdowns, has now become an actualised goal after he successfully achieved nuclear fusion this week.
Incidentally, this also makes him the youngest person to pull off such a feat.
At the nonprofit makerspace Launchpad, McMillan began building his first prototypes 2 years ago. The space was created to support the exciting science projects of Dallas children, fostering creativity, and now, world records.
In an interview with NBC5, McMillan talks of the perseverance to create the nuclear fusion machine. “I loved the project, but I also kinda hated it”, too real Aiden, too real.
McMillan approached the project purely from passion, saying “it doesn’t do anything for me, but in the grand scheme of things, fusion as a whole is … the energy of the future.”
Nuclear fusion is a promising, but under-researched, energy source. Not strictly renewable, it is almost inexhaustible, and mirrors the same process as the sun.
This process requires a highly specific environment to be successful. To have not 1, but 2, 12-year-olds achieve this is a little bit ridiculous.
Jackson Oswalt currently holds the Guinness World Record for youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion. Having achieved this just hours away from his 13-year-old birthday, the title is now challenged by McMillan (who turns 13 in only a few weeks).
McMillan has applied to the Guinness World Records; now we await the steal.
