A Dallas seventh grader may earn a Guiness World Record for his scientific achievements. Here’s what he’s working on.
For Dallas’s Aiden McMillan, completing his regular seventh grade coursework is only one part of his academic output. The other? Oh, just building a nuclear fusion machine. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, he’s also on the cusp of earning a Guinness World Record for his achievement given that he’s the youngest person to accomplish this specific task. He started work on his nuclear fusion machine when he was only eight years old. Now, at 12, he’s successfully completed his first nuclear fusion with the machine.
He spoke with NBC-5 about the experience, saying, “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.” After they got that squared away, he began devoting more time to his research and work. He was supported by West Dallas’s nonprofit Launchpad, which provides students with makerspace to complete a variety of scientific and technological projects.
When McMillan realized that his machine was actually producing a nuclear fusion—or, as he put it to NBC-5, “We got neutrons, yeah!”—it made him emotional. “Kind of tearing up about it cause it was like, hard to describe. It was like the end of a long, long journey,” he told the outlet. It’s an incredible achievement for anyone of any age, but it’s made all the sweeter by that Guinness World Record potential…even if the seventh grader doesn’t care about that aspect of his work.
McMillan is doing this for the love of the game
Before Aiden McMillan set out to actually put together his first machine prototype, he studied nuclear physics and its concepts for around two years. “I mean, I loved the project, but I also kinda hated it,” the 12-year-old told NBC-5. It took several stops and starts for him to design a machine that would produce a proper nuclear fusion, but through every setback and moment of frustration, he was dedicated to pursuing his interest. Which is, really, why McMillan set this momentous task for himself to begin with: To be able to pursue his own curiosity, and not to gain anything (up to and including a Guinness World Record) for doing so.
“It doesn’t make me jump higher. It doesn’t make me write faster. It doesn’t do anything for me, and to be honest, it’s really just a project of interest, but in the grand scheme of things, like fusion as a whole, in my opinion, is the energy of the future,” he said.
