Chicago Pile-1

This .pdf is courtesy of the California Digital Library.

The Atomic Age began at 3.25 PM on December 2, 1942 – quietly, in secrecy, on a gloomy squash court under the west stands of old Stagg Field. What do trees know?Their dead leaves rolldown Ellis Avenue, soddenwith snow blown past steep gray sidesof a boarded-up stadium,drifted in steppes on abandoned stands. Cheers may come […]

Left to right, back row:Norman Hilberry, 1899-1986Samuel Allison, 1900-1965Thomas Brill, 1920-1998Robert Nobles, 1917-2007Warren Nyer, 1922-2016Marvin Wilkening, 1918-2006 Left to right, middle row:Harold Agnew, 1921-2013William Sturm, 1918-1999Harold Lichtenberger, 1920-1993Leona Woods, 1919-1986Leo Szilard, 1898-1964 Left to right, front row:Enrico Fermi, 1901-1954Walter Zinn, 1907-2000Albert Wattenberg, 1917-2007Herbert Anderson, 1914-1988    List of Chicago Pile-1 Witnesses Harold M. Agnew Samuel K. […]

On Wednesday afternoon, 12/2/42, Compton took me over to West Stands to see the crucial experiment on Pile #1. When we got there, the control rod had been pulled out to within 3 inch of the point where K would be 1.0. The rod had been pulled out about 12 inch to reach this point. […]

From Fermi’s Own Story by Enrico Fermi The year was 1939. A world war was about to start. The new possibilities appeared likely to be important, not only for peace, but also for war. A group of physicists in the United States—including Leo Szilard, Walter Zinn, now director of Argonne National Laboratory, Herbert Anderson, and myself—agreed […]