16-Year-Old Stephen Udotong, First Black to Build a Nuclear Energy Fusor

Udotong is a young teenage boy who is presently a Junior Student in Cinnaminson High School, Southern New Jersey. Udotong has built a nuclear energy fusor.

A fusor, by definition, is a device that uses an electric field to heat ions to a suitable condition until a nuclear fusion can be achieved. The machine generates an electric potential difference between two metal cages inside a vacuum.

This fusor is the second of its kind after the one Inventor Philo Farnsworth built in the 1950s.

While speaking with Face2Face Africa about what propelled the action, Udotong says that he was inspired to build a reactor in the 10th grade, after his class took lessons on nuclear energy production. In his words, “I grew curious after we flew by the topic of nuclear energy in my chemistry class last year. I decided to do more research, and I soon learned that I could actually make a nuclear fusor.”

Udotong says he undertook further research and learned more about nuclear fusion from Fusor.net, which allowed him to meet and interact with other fusion enthusiasts.

In addition to his mother, Nonye Udotong, a physics instructor at Rowan University who encouraged his interest and actively supported him, Udotong has also enjoyed the support of his four brainy brothers, one of whom assisted him with ideas to raise more than the $1,000 he needed to build the fusion reactor and implemented it to help Udotong achieve his dream of becoming the first African-American student to complete such a project.

One of the advantages of nuclear fusion is that it is comparatively eco-friendly and an incredibly cost-effective process of producing energy.

Conclusively, the invention was embraced in accordance with scientists research that says, “nuclear fusion holds the promise of providing a waste-free, emission-free, and inexhaustible alternative power source to meet global energy demands.”

Udotong thereafter is named the first black to build a nuclear fusor reactor.