Taylor Wilson facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Taylor Wilson
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Wilson in 2016
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| Born | May 7, 1994 Texarkana, Arkansas, United States
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| Occupation | Nuclear science |
| Awards | Thiel Fellowship |
Taylor Wilson is an American scientist who works with nuclear energy. He became famous for achieving nuclear fusion when he was only 14 years old in 2008. Nuclear fusion is a process that creates energy by joining atomic nuclei. He has also created a small device to find radiation, which can help make places like airports safer. Taylor Wilson also works on using nuclear energy for medicine and designing new types of power reactors.
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Early Life and Education
Taylor Wilson was born on May 7, 1994, in Texarkana, Arkansas. His parents are Kenneth and Tiffany Wilson. His father owned a Coca-Cola bottling plant, and his mother taught yoga. When he was younger, Taylor was very interested in rockets and space science. By the time he was 10, he became fascinated with nuclear science. His parents supported his scientific interests a lot. Today, he lives in Reno, Nevada.
In June 2012, Taylor Wilson received a special award called the Thiel Fellowship. This fellowship gives young people $100,000 over two years. To get this award, recipients agree to not go to college during the fellowship period. In 2017, Taylor joined the Helena Group. This group is a think tank that works on projects to make the world better.
Amazing Science Projects
Fusion Reactor
In 2008, when Taylor Wilson was 14, he successfully created nuclear fusion. He used a device called an inertial electrostatic confinement (IEC) device. This device is similar to a "fusor" that was invented by Philo T. Farnsworth in 1964. The fusion he achieved created temperatures that were incredibly hot, about forty times hotter than the sun!
Nuclear Detection Devices
In May 2010, Taylor Wilson participated in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, California. He won several awards for his project. This project focused on detecting nuclear materials.
The next year, in May 2011, Taylor entered his radiation detector project into the same science fair in Los Angeles, California. He competed against 1,500 other students. His project, which aimed to detect nuclear threats, won a US$50,000 award. It also won the top prize in the Physics and Astronomy Category and the Intel Young Scientist Award. Taylor hoped that his devices could be used quickly at US ports to help prevent terrorism.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Energy even offered to fund Taylor's research. They were interested in his work on building affordable Cherenkov radiation detectors.
Fission Reactor Ideas
On February 27, 2013, Taylor Wilson shared his ideas at the TED 2013 conference. He talked about the benefits of building small, underground nuclear fission reactors. These reactors would be self-contained. They would use uranium and plutonium from old nuclear weapons as fuel.
See also
In Spanish: Taylor Wilson para niños
- David Hahn
- Richard Handl
- Megatons to Megawatts
