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“I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

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Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#61

Post by nashashmi »

nickff wrote: post #22
vinceguidry wrote: post #19

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.

Almost there, but you lost it in the end. The straight A student would win not because he is less proactive but because he is more versatile to handle any task. Someone who is deeply invested in a technology from an early age will have seen lesser challenges and diversifications than someone who takes all courses all around.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#62

Post by meddlepal »

sthatipamala wrote: post #11

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."

Seems like he should have absolutely no problem transferring wherever he wants after this.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#63

Post by Fomite »

nickff wrote: post #22
vinceguidry wrote: post #19

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.

I am faculty, and I wouldn't.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#64

Post by wallace_f »

delazeur wrote: post #31
nickff wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's probably not true. I have run into very few faculty who want to have robots working for them, and I know quite a few faculty who are suspicious of perfect transcripts from potential grad students because it often means they avoided difficult courses or outside projects.

>quite a few faculty who are suspicious of perfect transcripts

In an undergrad department meeting, the topic was brought up on "why your parents should not call or arrive at the school seeking to talk to professors about their student's grades."

It's an open secret at some schools, Harvard being one of the most famous, that if you're rich or well-connected enough, you get in and coast with a B average, with relative ease--a C average at the worst.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#65

Post by mgkimsal »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #51
swampthinker wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Honestly, there are bunches of people with really impressive EC's that also have top GPAs and 99th+ percentile SAT's.

There can't be THAT many. Unless my math is wrong, they can only be at most 1% of the folks taking the SATs, right?

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#66

Post by wallace_f »

swampthinker wrote: post #48
AckSyn wrote: post #46

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)

>Being a solid B student doesn't get you into MIT (at least, that's what is drilled into your head)

I know someone who got into an MIT engineering program roughly around '03 and they claimed to have below a 500 on the old SAT verbal section (scored perfect 800 the math though).

Their claim was they purposefully did not study for the verbal section because 'excelling at rote memorization to get into the top schools in the world is idiotic at best,' something like that.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#67

Post by lsllc »

sthatipamala wrote: post #11

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."

That comment is why I submitted this. Shame on that counselor for saying that, they should have been encouraging him to go for his dream! Building a fusion reactor should get this kid an invite to somewhere like MIT (as Ahmed Mohamed did for the clock incident last year).

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#68

Post by pmiller2 »

tristanj wrote: post #47
themartorana wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great. A couple of high school kids just blew me away. I had to look up safe radiation levels after watching their Geiger counter. (Apparent answer: that's a lot of radiation, but a pretty short exposure.) Side note: the view of the hills and mountains from the reactor room is gorgeous.

> Side note: the view of the hills and mountains from the reactor room is gorgeous. Agreed. The twins' fusor.net profile says the they live in Berkeley, CA, a suburb across the bay from San Francisco. At 1min into the video I'm fairly the shot is from Berkeley looking across the bay to San Francisco. The mountains in the background look like the ones just south of San Francisco. If you head a bit farther up the hill…

AFAICT, berkeley's nuclear free ordinance only covers weapons research and development.

Re: “I built a fusion reactor in my bedroom – AMA”

#70

Post by zardeh »

mgkimsal wrote: post #65
akhilcacharya wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, there are bunches of people with really impressive EC's that also have top GPAs and 99th+ percentile SAT's.

There can't be THAT many. Unless my math is wrong, they can only be at most 1% of the folks taking the SATs, right?

1,700,000 SAT takers -> 17,000 people in the top 1%.

Selecting the top 10% of those gets you 1700 students, which is quite close to the size of Harvard's acceptance statistic (of 2000)

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