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A 14-year-old schoolboy has managed to build a working nuclear reactor in his bedroom and is being regarded as one of the youngest experts in America.

Jackson Oswalt, from Memphis, managed to finish building the reactor when he was just 13 years old.

The teenager completed the impressive feat by building a steel machine made up of vaccums, pumps and chambers. His creation is able to smash atoms together through force and release bursts of energy.

At aged 12 the youngster began work on the fusion reactor and scoured the internet for nuclear-related information as he was fascinated by it.

He told Fox News: “The start of the process was just learning about what other people had done with their fusion reactors.

“After that, I assembled a list of parts I needed. [I] got those parts off eBay primarily and then often times the parts that I managed to scrounge off of eBay weren’t exactly what I needed.

“So, I’d have to modify them to be able to do what I needed to do for my project.”

In order to find space for his project, Jackson converted a playroom in his home to a functioning lab.

He was able to finance his creation through the help of his parents, who spent between $8,000 and $10,000 over the course of a year on parts.

His father, Chris Oswalt, has admitted he had no real understanding on what his son was working on.

But to make sure he was safe, Mr Oswalt had experts speak to Jackson and educate him about any possible dangers.

Without any help from textbooks, Jackson said he mainly relied on trial and error and an online forum for amateur physicists.

He said: “After a while, it became pretty simple to realize how it all worked together, but at the start it was definitely figuring out one aspect of it, memorizing what that actually meant and then moving on to a different aspect of it.

“Eventually all those pieces of the puzzle came together to make a good project.”