This story of a child prodigy and his unique upbringing is “an engrossing journey to the outer realms of science and parenting” (Paul Greenberg, author of Four Fish).A PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award FinalistLike many young children, Taylor Wilson dreamed of becoming an astronaut. Only Wilson mastered the science of rocket propulsion by the age of nine. When he was eleven, he tried to cure his grandmother’s cancer—a...

This is the story of how an American teenager became the youngest person ever to build a working nuclear fusion reactor.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. And by fourteen, Wilson 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, ...