Tom Clynes: "The Boy Who Played with Fusion"

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Published Oct 20, 2015

Science journalist and photographer Tom Clynes visited Google's office in Cambridge, MA to discuss his book "The Boy Who Played with Fusion: Extreme Science, Extreme Parenting, and How to Make a Star".
By the age of nine, Taylor Wilson had mastered the science of rocket propulsion. At eleven, his grandmother’s cancer diagnosis drove him to investigate new ways to produce medical isotopes. Three years later, he had built a 500-million-degree reactor and become the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion. How could someone so young achieve so much, and what can Wilson’s story teach parents and teachers about how to support high-achieving kids?
In this book, Tom Clynes narrates Wilson’s extraordinary journey—from his Arkansas home where his parents fully supported his intellectual passions, to a unique Reno, Nevada, public high school just for academic superstars, to the present, when Wilson is winning international science competitions with devices designed to prevent terrorists from shipping radioactive material into the country. Along the way, Clynes reveals how our education system shortchanges gifted students, and what we can do to fix it.
Tom Clynes travels the world as a science writer and photojournalist. His work has appeared in National Geographic, Nature, the Washington Post, Popular Science, and many others. This is his second book.

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Tom Clynes: "The Boy Who Played with Fusion" | Talks at Google

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