Can you remember what you were doing when you were 12 years old?
I was waiting for the release of Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie and playing the Wii most nights.
Jackson Oswalt, from Memphis, Tennessee, remembers something very different at age 12.
Jackson had an ‘epiphany’ about video games when he was a child (X/@JacksonOswalt)
According to the Guinness World Records website, he explained:
“I realized that I could be the absolute best at whatever video game, but in the end it still wouldn’t mean much. In the grand scheme of things, video games had no role to play. So, I changed my ways.”
He did not shift his focus to comics or films.
Instead, he turned to what he called the closest real-life analogue to video games: science.
Jackson dove into the topic, watching YouTube videos about nuclear fusion and hunting down materials that might let him recreate the process at home.
Nuclear fusion happens when atomic nuclei combine under extreme heat and pressure to form new nuclei and neutrons.
The reaction then leads to either a release or absorption of energy.
Jackson achieved his Guinness World Record at 12 years old (YouTube/Guinness World Records)
He later outlined his steps in a Twitter thread last year, writing:
“The first step was to build a ‘demo fusor’, or a device that creates plasma but doesn’t achieve fusion. This required a vacuum chamber, vacuum pump, and a neon sign transformer with a homemade AC-DC converter.
“I ended up bringing this version to my school’s science fair. I only got it working the night before. In hindsight, it’s amazing they let me walk in the door with it.”
After buying the necessary parts and spending over a year testing his setup, Jackson became the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion in 2018.
His accomplishment, reached the day before he turned 13, was verified by Fusor.net, The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium.
Then, one Saturday morning, two FBI agents arrived at his house.
They had heard about his experiments and used a Geiger counter to check for any dangerous radiation.
Thankfully, the inquiry did not go further.
“Fortunately I remained a free man,” Jackson said.
Seven years after that achievement, Jackson now works for research labs such as Midjourney, focusing on hardware and research into AI.