Building a Star

Taylor's first TED talk

 Taylor Wilson built a fusion reactor when he was fourteen years old. As amazing as it sounds, this achievement was the logical conclusion of years of work on his part.  His interests in nuclear physics grew out of his earlier interests.  First, he wanted to be an astronaut and learned everything he could about the space program.  Then, he began to focus on rockets, building and launching model rockets at an empty fairground near his home in Texarkana, Arkansas.  About then his grandmother bought him the biography of David Hahn, a teenager who tried to build a nuclear reactor at his home in Michigan, only to end up contaminating his home and neighborhood.  After devouring this book, The Radioactive Boy Scout, Taylor told his parents, according to Tom Clynes, Taylor’s biographer, “Know what?  The things that kids was trying to do, I’m pretty sure I could actually do them.”  And he was right!  His first TED talk is above.

Clynes bio of Taylor

Clynes, excellent biography, The Boy Who Played with Fusion, recounts the journey from his grandmother’s garage in Texarkana to the basement of the physics building at the University of Nevada, Reno, where Taylor’s dream finally came to fruition.  The story of this journey is a fascinating tale of hard work, acquiring important mentors and allies when most needed, strokes of great fortune, setbacks, hugely supportive parents, and probably most of all, the power of a clear compelling vision, unflagging optimism, personal charisma, and supreme confidence. 

A big leap forward comes when Taylor’s parents, Kenneth and Tiffany, decide to move their family to Reno, Nevada so that both their sons can attend the Davidson Academy, a school for the profoundly gifted, sited on the grounds of the University of Nevada at Reno.  Taylor’s brother, Joey, is highly gifted mathematically and both boys had more than topped out in the Texarkana schools and were beginning to languish.  In Reno, Taylor took the initiative to introduce himself to Ron Phaneuf, a top plasma physicist at UNR.  Phaneuf, amazed by Taylor, decided to help him and together with the chief engineer in the physics department, Bill Brinsmead, they aided Taylor in his quest to build a fusion reactor.  Taylor’s reactor worked and worked spectacularly.  When Brinsmead asked Taylor if he ever imagined, when still back in his grandmother’s garage, that he’ d be here in the lab on this day making his reactor work.  Tellingly, Taylor answered, “To be honest, Bill, I did.  I just didn’t think it would take me this long,” said the fourteen-year-old Taylor.

Taylor's fusor