51–60 of 134 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not op, but for me getting into MIT was fall of 1997.
Yeah, I ask because the highschool workload and expectations have frankly changed. Being a solid B student doesn't get you into MIT (at least, that's what is drilled into your head)
This kid is awesome but this particular comment really made me sad: "Spending 3+ hours a day on a project during junior and senior year did not help my grades. My counselor told me that I wouldn't get into the top colleges because of this reason. I believed her and didn't apply to my dream colleges."
I didn't build a Farnsworth Fusor in high school but my school is ranked about the same as UCSC, hah.
Digging into the wikipedia article I found this interesting/surprising:
Recent Developments [1]:
"Most recently, the fusor has gained popularity among amateurs, who choose them as home projects due to their relatively low space, money, and power requirements. An online community of "fusioneers", The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, or Fusor.net, is dedicated to reporting developments in the world of fusors and aiding other amateurs in their projects. The site includes forums, articles and papers done on the fusor, including Farnsworth's original patent, as well as Hirsch's patent of his version of the invention."
Apparently there's an entire online community of amateur home nuclear reactor builders [2].
[0] http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-A-Fusion-Reactor/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, you can look at it this way, he would have never been well-served by the traditional society-determined path anyway. A project like this has the tendency to just blow away all other considerations. If you were hiring for a physics position, would you take the guy who got straight A's on his physics coursework, or the guy who built an effing nuclear reactor in his bedroom?
The sad thing is that if you were faculty, looking for a graduate student to supervise, you'd probably pick the one with straight A's and no hobbies, because you could get them to do whatever you wanted, without risk of them getting their own ideas or leaving.
This kid is awesome but this particular comment really made me sad: "Spending 3+ hours a day on a project during junior and senior year did not help my grades. My counselor told me that I wouldn't get into the top colleges because of this reason. I believed her and didn't apply to my dream colleges."
This kid is awesome but this particular comment really made me sad: "Spending 3+ hours a day on a project during junior and senior year did not help my grades. My counselor told me that I wouldn't get into the top colleges because of this reason. I believed her and didn't apply to my dream colleges."
Well, you can look at it this way, he would have never been well-served by the traditional society-determined path anyway. A project like this has the tendency to just blow away all other considerations. If you were hiring for a physics position, would you take the guy who got straight A's on his physics coursework, or the guy who built an effing nuclear reactor in his bedroom?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Um... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92M5qcjDkaU (From another top-level comment.)
Yeah, after I posted, I saw a comment saying his mom would leave the house whenever he wanted to run a test. Crazy.
If they weren't doing this in a suburb I'd say 'Congrats'-- but to knowingly be generating x-rays in a residential neighborhood is really, really selfish and disrespectful to neighbors.
I think this is overstating the risk a little bit. Looking at the video linked elsewhere, this was run in a bedroom on the second or even third floor of a single-family residence. He mentions not being able to detect x-rays more than 35ft from the device. I think a neighbor would have to be trying to get in range to be affected. Here's the video again, queued up to the view out the bedroom window: https://youtu.be/92…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, you can look at it this way, he would have never been well-served by the traditional society-determined path anyway. A project like this has the tendency to just blow away all other considerations. If you were hiring for a physics position, would you take the guy who got straight A's on his physics coursework, or the guy who built an effing nuclear reactor in his bedroom?
The sad thing is that if you were faculty, looking for a graduate student to supervise, you'd probably pick the one with straight A's and no hobbies, because you could get them to do whatever you wanted, without risk of them getting their own ideas or leaving.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a strict no "high-anything" rule for my basement bedroom. No high temperatures, no high voltages, no high amperages, no high velocity, no high pressure, no high vacuum, no high anything :(. At least I made my desktop sound like a jet engine, so that's something.
At least you can still experiment with vacuum pressures!