The boy who played with fusion
Subtitle: extreme science, extreme parenting, and how to make a star
By: Tom Clynes
Published: 2015
Language: eng
Number of pages: 303
ISBN-13: 9780544085114
Subjects: Nuclear fusion; Biography; Gifted boys; Fusion reactors
Description: How an American teenager became the youngest person ever to build a working nuclear fusion reactor. By the age of nine, Taylor Wilson had mastered the science of rocket propulsion. At eleven, his grandmother's cancer diagnosis drove him to investigate new ways to produce medical isotopes. And by fourteen, Wilson had built a 500-million-degree reactor and become the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion. How could someone so young achieve so much, and what can Wilson's story teach parents and teachers about how to support high-achieving kids? Here, science journalist Tom Clynes narrates Taylor Wilson's extraordinary journey--from his Arkansas home where his parents fully supported his intellectual passions, to a unique Reno, Nevada, public high school just for academic superstars, to the present, when Wilson is winning international science competitions with devices designed to prevent terrorists from shipping radioactive material into the country. Along the way, Clynes reveals how our education system shortchanges gifted students, and what we can do to fix it.--From publisher description.
Notes: "An Eamon Dolan book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-295) and index.
Table of contents: title: The digger; title: The pre-nuclear family; title: Propulsion!; title: Space camp; title: The "responsible" radioactive boy scout; title: The cookie jar; title: In the (glowing) footsteps of giants; title: Alpha, beta, gamma; title: Trust but verify; title: Extreme parenting; title: Accelerating toward big science; title: Heavy water; title: Bright as the sun; title: Bringing the sun down to earth; title: The roots of prodigiousness; title: The lucky donkey theory; title: Twice as nice, half as good; title: Atomic travel; title: Champions for the gifted; title: A Hogwarts for geniuses; title: A fourth state of grape; title: Heavy metal apron; title: Birth of a star; title: The neutron club; title: A field of dreams, an epiphany in a box; title: The father of all bombs; title: We're just breathing your air; title: The superbowl of science; title: Scotch tape.