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Student Builds Nuclear Fusion Prototype With Glowing Plasma Orb - Business Insider

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Hudhayfa Nazoordeen has worked on commercial-sized greenhouses and A-frame homes, but the 20-year-old's latest construction is much smaller: a nuclear fusion prototype that's about the size of a hand. When turned on, the device generates a hot, gaseous orb of glowing plasma — the same state of matter that makes up our sun. It looks like it belongs in a high-tech lab, not a student's bedroom. Nazoordeen, a mathematics student at the University of Waterloo, built the device in four weeks over the summer with parts he mostly ordered online. He said he spent about $2,000 from start to finish. "This is something out of the ordinary for me," Nazoordeen told Business Insider. He'd never worked on electrical projects before and isn't looking to start a career in nuclear physics. He said he built the device because it was fun. "I can prove it to myself at least that I can make it. And I think that's a fun part about it," he said. Nuclear fusion is what powers our sun and thermonuclear weapons.

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