Feb. 10 (UPI) — A 12-year-old Dallas student’s four-year-long science project may have resulted in his becoming the youngest person to ever achieve nuclear fusion.
Aiden McMillan, a Dallas Independent School District seventh-grader, said he started work on his ambitious project when he was just 8 years old, and spent the first two years studying nuclear physics concepts before building his first prototypes.
He said it took some work to ensure his mother was comfortable with his tinkering.
“There were some alarm bells with my mom, yes, she was like, ‘ Whoa, whoa, whoa, take a step back, tell me exactly what could go wrong, and how it could go wrong and make sure it doesn’t go wrong,'” McMillan told NBC DFW.
The project concluded with McMillan achieving nuclear fusion.
“We got neutrons, yeah,” McMillan said. “Kind of tearing up about it cause it was like, hard to describe. It was like the end of a long, long journey.”
McMillan is now applying to Guinness World Records to be recognized as the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion. The record is currently held by Jackson Oswalt, a Tennessee native who successfully achieved nuclear fusion just hours before his 13th birthday in 2018.