Chicago Pile-1
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A reflection on the nuclear scientists who gave Mao’s China the bomb.
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The age of nuclear weapons has been remarkably peaceful, but danger is ever present.
The subject of controversy when it was commissioned, Nuclear Energy has become a constant in the UChicago landscape.
The story of the first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction is one of science, of war, and of people—those who made the experiment a success, those who strove to inform the public about the threats the breakthrough posed, and those tending its ambivalent legacies today.
The scientists who made CP-1 possible, and the thinkers tending its ambivalent legacy today.
Enrico Fermi and Leo Szilard were comparable scientific visionaries but opposite personalities.
The University marks the 75th anniversary of Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first controlled, self-sustaining nuclear reaction.