Top 20 Quotes & Sayings by Taylor Wilson

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American scientist Taylor Wilson.
Last updated on April 14, 2025.
Taylor Wilson

Taylor Wilson is an American nuclear physicist and science advocate. Wilson achieved controlled nuclear fusion in 2008 when he was 14 years old. He has designed a compact radiation detector to enhance airport security. Wilson works to expand applications for nuclear medicine, and to design and develop modular power reactor technology.

There's nothing that's impossible to me. You can ask my parents.
Everybody after Fukushima had to reassess the safety of nuclear. When I set out to design a reactor, I knew it had to be passive and intrinsically safe.
As a kid, I was obsessed with space. Well, I was obsessed with nuclear science too, to a point, but before that, I was obsessed with space, and I was really excited about, you know, being an astronaut and designing rockets, which was something that was always exciting to me.
I developed a counterterrorism device that's revolutionizing the way we detect nuclear materials. — © Taylor Wilson
I developed a counterterrorism device that's revolutionizing the way we detect nuclear materials.
If you look at the scientists who really make a difference, they think boldly. They're not afraid to question what they see.
When I hold something that's radioactive, it's kind of an indescribable feeling. It's kind of like when I'm with my girlfriend.
I really have become convinced that nuclear fusion is our energy future. It's so powerful. I mean, it is the power of the stars. If we could bring that down to the laboratory and to the power plant on Earth, that would be an incredible thing.
I was about 10 when I got into nuclear science. That was when that spark hit me. It took a few years of research, but when I was 14, I produced my first nuclear-fusion reaction.
These days, the scientific community accepts me. But getting to that point was tremendously hard, and I think it required a big perception shift. When people have dedicated their lives to something - and spent eight years in college - they just expect that a kid wouldn't be up to doing it.
I have too many ideas for a lifetime.
I don't mean to offend anybody, but I think that we get a lot of scientists now who are bent into a system, and we lose some of their boldness by that. Obviously, you have to learn the ropes, but I think it's important to do that without hammering out the radicalness that makes innovation happen.
I think there's something really poetic about using nuclear power to propel us to the stars, because the stars are giant fusion reactors. They're giant nuclear cauldrons in the sky.
I started out with a dream to make a star in a jar in my garage, and I ended up meeting the President of the United States!
I've been focused on detecting nuclear terrorism at ports, in cargo containers, and I developed and built detectors that are extremely cheap and also very sensitive. My other big development is a system to produce medical isotopes that are injected into patients and used to diagnose and treat cancer.
When I was 10 years old, that nuclear spark hit me. Whatever it may be, I really don't know what it was about nuclear science, but whatever it was that triggered that interest, it stuck. I went after that one with a passion.
My holy grail is fusion energy. Nuclear fusion has little to no radioactive waste. It's clean. It's very abundant. The fuels are everywhere. There are problems with fusion.
I started out with a dream to make a star in a jar, and I ended up ... making things that I think can change the world.
I made a nuclear reactor when I was 14
I'm a very safe person, probably to the extreme. — © Taylor Wilson
I'm a very safe person, probably to the extreme.
I got into nuclear science when I was about 10 years old I was fascinated by the stuff. I was fascinated by the reactions and the power inside these atoms that we had the capability to unlock.
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