10 ms·

Youngest? Maybe, but the slickness of those pictures tells me that the real achievement comes from the parents who...nurtured...his inclinations. IMO David Hah

Youngest? Maybe, but the slickness of those pictures tells me that the real achievement comes from the parents who...nurtured...his inclinations. IMO David Hahn's reactor is still more impressive. Kids these days can't even make a DIY superfund site properly... https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/ https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scou...

bsder 6y ago
> who...nurtured...his inclinations. You mean funded. That Pfeiffer Turbopump is several hundred bucks used. When I was 13 years old, I would have killed someone to own just that analog scope.
- znpy 6y ago
  Indeed. When I was 16 I wasn't able to "get funding" for a lab bench power supply. I resorted to building one off an used ATX computer power supply, but voltages fluctuated a lot and also it was pretty high and non-regulable in current output. That was a recipe for troubles. Indeed, when one of the first boards I was learning on caught fire (mis-configured potentiometer + non-limited current dwaw) I didn't feel safe anymore to continue and basically stopped doing that kind of stuff. So yeah, extremely impressive achievement for a 13 years old student, not downplaying his achievement, but it's wrong to understate the role that his parents and their funding had.
  - PaulAJ 6y ago
    You had a used ATX power supply?! You were LUCKY!. When I were a lad, all we had was a bike dynamo. And you had to crank it by hand... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE
    - znpy 6y ago
      ok boomer
  - unionpivo 6y ago
    Jup my problem was that there was plenty of schematics for power supplies in books and on bcc's, but building a reliable one is not a beginners task.
  - bsder 6y ago
    > (mis-configured potentiometer + non-limited current dwaw) I didn't feel safe anymore to continue and basically stopped doing that kind of stuff. Sorry, this gave me a chuckle as it effectively encapsulates engineers. The "Light Emitting Resistor" is a rite of passage. It's when you finally understand that it's called "Ohm's Law" for a reason.
fxtentacle 6y ago
Yes, this is a perfect example for the nature vs. nurture debate. While the kid building his reactor is almost certainly intelligent and driven, he was also lucky enough to be born into a family in the upper 1% income bracket, because most people would have neither the space nor the funds to set up such a laboratory. It's kind of the same with child prodigy musicians. Unless the parents have a piano at home, they'll most likely not notice their kids talent early enough. And most middle-income families these days don't own a house and won't have a piano around for decorative purposes. BTW, that harpers link is an amazing story :)
- alexgmcm 6y ago
  It reminds me of what Stephen Jay Gould said: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
- DharmaPolice 6y ago
  To be fair on the kid, in a video on YouTube [1] he ends by saying he's trying to create an organisation to help kids do experiments who don't have the financial support that he does. I don't know what that means exactly, but it at least demonstrates some awareness to be saying that (even if it's just on behalf of his mom/dad who might have told him to say it). 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvhy141WU14&ab_channel=Afrinik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvhy141WU14&ab_channel=Afrin... (Fox affiliate if that bothers you)
  - insensible 6y ago
    Is there a reason to doubt that a guy who is capable of designing and building a home fusion reactor is also capable of noticing that being able to buy all the gear is a privilege others don't have?
    - DharmaPolice 6y ago
      I try to maintain a healthy level of skepticism where possible. I don't disbelieve this kid and that wasn't my point - I was defending him- there's just a bit of a gap between "noticing you have privilege" and helping to found an organisation to help other kids do experiments. The latter claim might start to set off "too good to be true" detectors, so I'm merely saying that even if that's not 100% true the fact he's talking about it is a positive thing since some young talented people do seem utterly oblivious to their own privilege.
spaceribs 6y ago
Stepping back for a moment, it's amazing to me how much the conversation has shifted from merit to privilege in my lifetime. Up until around 2010, you'd be shouted down as a troll for taking down this kid's achievements.
- codeisawesome 6y ago
  Thank goodness we live after the 2010s then =)
  - DharmaPolice 6y ago
    Meh, I'm literally a Communist and I find the tone unnecessarily negative at times. Yes, obviously the kid is privileged, but there are a shit load of privileged kids and how many of them are doing cool experiments like this?
- BlueGh0st 6y ago
  And no matter how much privilege may have indeed played a part, it seems very gross to me that people seek to debase their achievements by focusing on aspects that these kids can't even control. It's rude (to a point) to point out how much raw luck may have had in one's achievements, but why is privilege (which is arguably very similar in many ways) fair game? The focus should be on all of the effort that the kid put forth which many other equally privileged or lucky kids would have squandered.
  - watwut 6y ago
    > It's rude (to a point) to point out how much raw luck Why should it be rude?
  - rtpg 6y ago
    I think the point is that the effort is maybe not as much as the lauding implies ("Guy makes WSYWIG editor in 10 seconds" is less impressive if I just use contenteditable) I don't really agree on this reading for this case, but this _definitely_ applies for basically every 30 under 30 list and lots of stuff in VC-land (Theranos etc). Some people get a silver spoon of a situation and get lauded for basically showing up.
strogonoff 6y ago
This is why meritocracy as it is now is flawed[0]. Smart people who work crazy hours, achieve a lot and obtain the appropriate status and wealth are also smart enough to know to invest tons and tons of money into their kids’ education and incentivise them to work as hard. Eventually it approaches a “pyramid scheme” where again only rich can win and everyone is unhappy. [0] This is something Daniel Markovits talks about: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc...
- ponker 6y ago
  Except not only the rich can win. My longtime barber is a Vietnamese guy who speaks very broken English. When I go and get a haircut his son was often in the store studying. My barber would tell him a math problem, like 257 times 191 or whatever, then the kid would produce the answer, then my barber would interrupt my haircut to whip out a calculator and check. Kid got a full scholarship to Duke University. And I’ve seen this in other Asian immigrants as well, a cab driver in NYC whose daughter was at Cornell Medical School.
  - krak12 6y ago
    So, entering a prestigious university is considered a success? It seems that the rich man has really won
  - huffmsa 6y ago
    Barbering can be a surprising lucrative career. Especially men's barbering. Has a particularly high dollar/hour rate too. Tooling is $1k for clippers and scissors and razors. Not sure about chairs, but probably another $1k. Suppose you charge $20 a cut, typical cut takes ~15-20 minutes and you're open 360 days a year. 10 cuts/day => $72k/yr. 2-3 hours of work a day. 20 cuts/day => $144k/yr. 4-5 hours of work a day. Find reasonable rent and you're netting a pretty good profit. And yes it's an easy space to enter, but generally, once men find "their barber", they're locked in for pretty much the rest of their life and become a regular customer every 2-3 weeks.

bsder 6y ago

> who...nurtured...his inclinations. You mean funded. That Pfeiffer Turbopump is several hundred bucks used. When I was 13 years old, I would have killed someone to own just that analog scope.

znpy 6y ago
Indeed. When I was 16 I wasn't able to "get funding" for a lab bench power supply. I resorted to building one off an used ATX computer power supply, but voltages fluctuated a lot and also it was pretty high and non-regulable in current output. That was a recipe for troubles. Indeed, when one of the first boards I was learning on caught fire (mis-configured potentiometer + non-limited current dwaw) I didn't feel safe anymore to continue and basically stopped doing that kind of stuff. So yeah, extremely impressive achievement for a 13 years old student, not downplaying his achievement, but it's wrong to understate the role that his parents and their funding had.
- PaulAJ 6y ago
  You had a used ATX power supply?! You were LUCKY!. When I were a lad, all we had was a bike dynamo. And you had to crank it by hand... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue7wM0QC5LE
  - znpy 6y ago
    ok boomer
- unionpivo 6y ago
  Jup my problem was that there was plenty of schematics for power supplies in books and on bcc's, but building a reliable one is not a beginners task.
- bsder 6y ago
  > (mis-configured potentiometer + non-limited current dwaw) I didn't feel safe anymore to continue and basically stopped doing that kind of stuff. Sorry, this gave me a chuckle as it effectively encapsulates engineers. The "Light Emitting Resistor" is a rite of passage. It's when you finally understand that it's called "Ohm's Law" for a reason.

fxtentacle 6y ago

Yes, this is a perfect example for the nature vs. nurture debate. While the kid building his reactor is almost certainly intelligent and driven, he was also lucky enough to be born into a family in the upper 1% income bracket, because most people would have neither the space nor the funds to set up such a laboratory. It's kind of the same with child prodigy musicians. Unless the parents have a piano at home, they'll most likely not notice their kids talent early enough. And most middle-income families these days don't own a house and won't have a piano around for decorative purposes. BTW, that harpers link is an amazing story :)

alexgmcm 6y ago
It reminds me of what Stephen Jay Gould said: “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
DharmaPolice 6y ago
To be fair on the kid, in a video on YouTube [1] he ends by saying he's trying to create an organisation to help kids do experiments who don't have the financial support that he does. I don't know what that means exactly, but it at least demonstrates some awareness to be saying that (even if it's just on behalf of his mom/dad who might have told him to say it). 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvhy141WU14&ab_channel=Afrinik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvhy141WU14&ab_channel=Afrin... (Fox affiliate if that bothers you)
- insensible 6y ago
  Is there a reason to doubt that a guy who is capable of designing and building a home fusion reactor is also capable of noticing that being able to buy all the gear is a privilege others don't have?
  - DharmaPolice 6y ago
    I try to maintain a healthy level of skepticism where possible. I don't disbelieve this kid and that wasn't my point - I was defending him- there's just a bit of a gap between "noticing you have privilege" and helping to found an organisation to help other kids do experiments. The latter claim might start to set off "too good to be true" detectors, so I'm merely saying that even if that's not 100% true the fact he's talking about it is a positive thing since some young talented people do seem utterly oblivious to their own privilege.

spaceribs 6y ago

Stepping back for a moment, it's amazing to me how much the conversation has shifted from merit to privilege in my lifetime. Up until around 2010, you'd be shouted down as a troll for taking down this kid's achievements.

codeisawesome 6y ago
Thank goodness we live after the 2010s then =)
- DharmaPolice 6y ago
  Meh, I'm literally a Communist and I find the tone unnecessarily negative at times. Yes, obviously the kid is privileged, but there are a shit load of privileged kids and how many of them are doing cool experiments like this?
BlueGh0st 6y ago
And no matter how much privilege may have indeed played a part, it seems very gross to me that people seek to debase their achievements by focusing on aspects that these kids can't even control. It's rude (to a point) to point out how much raw luck may have had in one's achievements, but why is privilege (which is arguably very similar in many ways) fair game? The focus should be on all of the effort that the kid put forth which many other equally privileged or lucky kids would have squandered.
- watwut 6y ago
  > It's rude (to a point) to point out how much raw luck Why should it be rude?
- rtpg 6y ago
  I think the point is that the effort is maybe not as much as the lauding implies ("Guy makes WSYWIG editor in 10 seconds" is less impressive if I just use contenteditable) I don't really agree on this reading for this case, but this _definitely_ applies for basically every 30 under 30 list and lots of stuff in VC-land (Theranos etc). Some people get a silver spoon of a situation and get lauded for basically showing up.

strogonoff 6y ago

This is why meritocracy as it is now is flawed[0]. Smart people who work crazy hours, achieve a lot and obtain the appropriate status and wealth are also smart enough to know to invest tons and tons of money into their kids’ education and incentivise them to work as hard. Eventually it approaches a “pyramid scheme” where again only rich can win and everyone is unhappy. [0] This is something Daniel Markovits talks about: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritocracys-miserable-winners/594760/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/meritoc...

ponker 6y ago
Except not only the rich can win. My longtime barber is a Vietnamese guy who speaks very broken English. When I go and get a haircut his son was often in the store studying. My barber would tell him a math problem, like 257 times 191 or whatever, then the kid would produce the answer, then my barber would interrupt my haircut to whip out a calculator and check. Kid got a full scholarship to Duke University. And I’ve seen this in other Asian immigrants as well, a cab driver in NYC whose daughter was at Cornell Medical School.
- krak12 6y ago
  So, entering a prestigious university is considered a success? It seems that the rich man has really won
- huffmsa 6y ago
  Barbering can be a surprising lucrative career. Especially men's barbering. Has a particularly high dollar/hour rate too. Tooling is $1k for clippers and scissors and razors. Not sure about chairs, but probably another $1k. Suppose you charge $20 a cut, typical cut takes ~15-20 minutes and you're open 360 days a year. 10 cuts/day => $72k/yr. 2-3 hours of work a day. 20 cuts/day => $144k/yr. 4-5 hours of work a day. Find reasonable rent and you're netting a pretty good profit. And yes it's an easy space to enter, but generally, once men find "their barber", they're locked in for pretty much the rest of their life and become a regular customer every 2-3 weeks.