The title to this post sounds like one of those anomalies that come up on Google, but in this case it’s true! A seventeen year old amateur physicist by the name of Thiago Olsen spent two years scouring eBay and other sources for the parts to build a nuclear reactor in his parents basement.
Amazingly he achieved his goal and although it’s not going to power his house he’s built a machine capable of fusing two hydrogen atoms together to create helium. Apparently it’s quite safe, just rather high 40,000 volts and small amount of X-rays emitted through a glass window in the vacuum chamber when the eerie 200 million degree ball of plasma is formed!
A truly astounding DIY achievement, you never know, one day he might be selling the finished product on eBay!
