Rules exist to keep people down and prevent success.
Is it legal to build your own nuclear device?
From the article, it sounds like the director had somebody else in mind to go to the world’s science fair.
Thermonuclear hydrogen bomb atomic FUSION? Color me skeptical. May have to read the article.....
Fusion? He just solved the world’s energy problems....
1. Yes, it really was fusion (not engineering breakeven or even scientific breakeven, but genuine fusion).
2. The kid violated the rules, and he deserved to be disqualified for that reason. The rules are inconvenient, but they were intended to prevent exactly what he did and it’s part of the game - even in science fairs.
Mounted on the back of a DeLorean?
In 1955 my husband’s entry in the local Science Fair was confiscated by the FBI before the fair ever opened.
They just walked in and gathered up the exhibit. My husband’s entry was a model of a nuclear submarine (non working) and he had built it under the supervision of his Chemistry teacher. Turns out the Chem teacher had worked on the Manhatten Project, and the FBI thought that my husband’s entry was “too realistic”.
I’m not sure how detailed this “model” was. I suspect that it was more detailed drawings than actual model.
Made a little Helium out of Lithium, did he?
I don’t think it’s a good idea to tick off a kid capable of building his own nuclear device.
Shades of Sheldon Cooper.
Any relation to Philo Farnsworth? Supposedly he created a fusion generator, too.