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Amazing stuff - filmed this month at TED:

Amazing acheivements but this seamed more like a self promotion than anything else " I did this and I did that " and wondering why TED did this peice unless he is somekind of undiscovered talent which he is not. Came of a big arrogant and cocky too me, but I guess i would be too if I pulled all of this at any age let alone his.

I guess a real live Sheldon Cooper in the making ?

I don't think he comes off as arrogant or self-promoting. He's brilliant and has accomplished a lot! It is hilarious that a 17 year old can make detectors and products in his garage for only hundreds of dollars that other teams of scientists have used tens of thousands or millions of dollars on in their fancy labs.

I guess, but still I dont see the point of this TED "episode" I guess it would make more sense to me, if he would have gone into details how he managed to built better stuff on a shoe string budget than multi million dollar companies can, but on the other hand we all know how large sums of money are wasted, specially in govt contracts and how much the of the money really goes into any actual R&D. Most of the time its all about pushing out your product the fastest and the highest profut margin as possible.

Its everywhere even in so called charities like tthe recent Kony thing, but ofcourse taking nothing away from the kid and his achievments which I have already stated are nothing short of Amazing.

Also I would have liked a little more explination on his fusion reactor which has the same inhenrent fault as all revious attempts at building one, you need to pump a lot of more energy into it than you get out of it, this time its only amazing because a child did it and could manage to make one of his own, but at the end of the day its not going to solve the worlds energies problems and has been done before

No dount he is a bright spark and a genius and more power to him and child prodigies like Angela Zhang who might actually solve huge problems like curing cancer and solving the worlds energy issue.

But I my intital qualm still stands as to seeing the point of this TED episode and not keeping in line with their previous efforts ( which BTW I think are brilliant ) other than it being a brief showcase for Taylor. Someone which the media has already covered in the past aswell.



Just sayin'

Yes, true that it doesn't seem in line with usual TED stuff. Maybe they just wanted to highlight a new talent. I'm trying to look up an interesting comment on the Kony initiative that I recently read, will start a new thread with that one if I can find it!

I didnt see the vidoe, but from your posts I gathered there is a teen building a fusion reactor. Do you think that is even possible? few years ago Ahmadinejad announced that a 16 years made something like this in their home kitchen and everyone made fun of this announcement. It became a real joke here. So someting similar happened?

You can't see the video?

When I did my science projects there was no Ted. I utilized garbage to produce electricity, in real world, it may or may not have any workable application. Anyhow, I added new a photo.

No Mel he has already built a fusion reactor but again has the same problem with it which anyone in the past who has attempted it in. You need to pump in way more energy into it than you get out of it. All attempts till now have been at best proof of concept that its fusion is possible but currently where it stands its not economically fesiable.

Off topic : I personally believe this is the way of the future and what irks me is that all those billions of dollars world wide being pumped into green science quackery were put into making a viable fusion reactor, we might even have had one or very near in the future.

Maybe it is not possible to build a nuclear reactor like that. Green science is not quackery, new solar panels and batteries to store energy is much more feasible than current nuclear fusion technology. But that is difficult to implement in the west were sunshine is less.

Wind farms, geo thermal, solar etc etc are all proven facts and not quackery per se but they all have their own set of problems which make them less than suitaible for board spectrum use across the world and if any of these provide cheap energy to third world and poor countries them all power to them.

My issue is with "Green" which has become nothing short of an industry in itself and they have no moral high ground to stand on anymore and its just about making money like any other bussiness wheter its offering green solutions or funneling great chunks of money in form of funds or contributions.

I call use the word quackery in the broader sense when dealing with global warming and tons of money and resources gone into fighting it. When I was child I clearly remember these same scientists were telling us than an ice age was just around the corner, then there was a growing hole in the ozone layer and anybody not wearing SPF 10,000,000 sunblock was going to get fried to a crisp with in the decade and then the next bogey man came into existance, global warming and from the time it first started making rounds the ice caps should have melted and millions should have drowned in coastal cities around the world by now according to their predictions. Even today with the occurance of any macro weather phenomena, they are quick to jump on the band wagon and blame global warming.

Scandals like climatgate only further enhance the view that they have to keep the global warming bogeyman alive other wise their taps will run dry and they will soon be out of a job.

In hind sight I can only see the melenium bug people wishing they didn't limit their fear monegering till 31.12.1999 and they would have had their cake and eaten it too.

kanelli , No K. Youtube is blocked here. I can use VPN and wait, but it takes time and I was lazy!
desertdudeshj , oh ok I See. So I was wrong, the one that Iranian teenager claimed building in their kitchen was a nuclear.

DDS, trillions of US$ won't help if it is nearly impossible to make a nuclear fussion technology like that. More realist approach is to use the technology that actually cost effective and can power billions of people. Wind is limited, it have to be in the right location to make it work and you will never know when wind currents change. But solar has already proven to power poor homes. Here is another success story http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/ ... icas-poor/

A little over a hunder years ago no one thought man would be able to fly, less than a hundred years back no one thought Nuclear fission could power the world, 20 years back the general population of the world couldn't imagine the internet, so saying its not possible is not correct. Proof of concept for a Nuclear fusion plant is there, hell even a kid was able to make one in his garage on a shoe string budget. Just need to iron out the wrinkles at this stage, thats where my argument comes in, spending heaps of money in trying to make current tech "green" is BS to me and discouraging people from using it in the form of taxes and higher prices is even bigger BS to me.

Solar has its inherit problems and contarary to popular belief is not a very cheap and efficient method of energy production, for example do you know how big a solar array you will need to provide the same level of energy you are using at the moment and how much that will cost ?

Although like your links I'm all for improving the standard of living for people who either dont have access or can't afford basic needs of life like electricity or running water. But these are just anecdotal and macro examples and not something that can be appled to or benefits humanity as a whole. I'm not saying drop every thing at this very moment, in fact quite the opposite. There should be more funding for such projects but the constant fear of this impending doom due to these climateologists influencing everything from car manufacturers from making less effiencent cars to meet "green" standards to govts impleting "green" policies and everything in between to paying more for a simple peice of paper because it is "green"

Recycling of paper, metal and plastics has been going on for decades in poor countries and keeps a lot of things affordable to the common man, but now in the new world anyone can guilt you into paying morebecause its "green" for something that might actually cost them less. Metals have been recycled for ages all over the world but now they can also jump on the band wagon. Now every celebrity must have a Toyota Prius to be politcaly correct even though its is much less efficient than similar sized diesel powered car and actually cause more toxic pollution to manufacture than a regular small diesel vehicle.

I guess in the end my problem with "green" is that its just a phantom bogeyman and the average person will have to pay a lot more and make a lot more compromises to feed him.

You can watch it from here Mel... http://www.ted.com/talks/taylor_wilson_ ... actor.html

Berrin , thanks, was about to post that for Mel!

I think a bit of perspective on this clip - first it was a very short TED talk - only 3 mins and was from a session with a lot of speakers (you can see them in the background at the beginning of the clip). It was therefore part of a series of talks and in context it had to be short.

He made the point that his fusion reactor was not producing more energy than was being input - so nothing extra-ordinary there - but that the process produced by-products that he could use. The main point was that he did this in his teens - starting around 12 years old and having working reactor at 14.

The two points he made was that 1. the future is fusion (yet to be achieved) and 2. children can contribute valuably. I think it was meant to be light hearted and highlight his achievements - especially for part 2. It was too short to go into detail for point 1.

So, whilst I agree he may come across as arrogant - I think that's more a feature of the format and time constraints. (I think he has the right to be arrogant given his achievements ... but he didn't come across as arrogant to me - I took it as someone who was stating his achievements and sort of saying 'see what a kid can do'! )

Mel, I hope you can see it now.

At least, I'm glad others found it interesting too!

Cheers,

Shafique

Thanks guys, I saw it.

Why this is in politics?

No idea ! Guess you will have to ask shaf about that

Andyba wrote:Why this is in politics?

Well, it isn't any more..

But I guess there was some politics in this - as it about someone producing Nuclear by products, including the production of yellow cake - the guy makes a reference to this and Iran.. but apart from that, the answer is 'it's where I post most often'

Cheers,
Shafique

Now this is more like it

http://www.ted.com/talks/donald_sadoway ... nergy.html

What did I do when I was his age. Thanks for sharing.

Teen building reactor is something unexpectable, but its really very nice to have build by teenagers. Video seems to be good and knowledgable. Thanks for sharing.