The Birth of the Nuclear Age

JAN 01, 1993

When Ernest Rutherford dismissed nuclear energy as ‘moonshine’ in 1933, Leo Szilard took it as a personal challenge. Nine years later, under a Chicago grandstand, Enrico Fermi demonstrated the first self‐sustaining uranium pile.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881378

Albert Wattenberg

Fifty years ago last month Enrico Fermi demonstrated that a self‐sustaining nuclear chain reaction could be produced and controlled. It was a quantitative experiment, and it was Fermi who decided upon all the cautious steps to be followed and all the measurements to be made.

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References

1. L. Szilard, Leo Szilard: His Version of the Facts, S. R. Weart, G. W. Szilard, eds., MIT P., Cambridge Mass. (1978).
2. J. Tabin, in Collected Works of Leo Szilard: Scientific Papers, B. T. Feld, G. W. Szilard, eds., MIT P., Cambridge, Mass. (1972), p. 527.
3. B. T. Feld, in Collected Works of Leo Szilard: Scientific Papers, B. T. Feld, G. W. Szilard, eds., MIT P., Cambridge, Mass. (1972), p. 171.
4. E. Fermi, Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 90, 20 (1946).https://doi.org/PAPCAA
5. H. L. Anderson, A. Wattenberg, in Enrico Fermi: Collected Papers, vol. II, H. L. Anderson, E. Persico, E. Segre, A. Wattenberg, eds., U. Chicago P., Chicago (1965), p. 119.
6. A. Wattenberg, in All in Our Time, J. Wilson, ed., Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Chicago (1974).
7. H. L. Anderson, in All in Our Time, J. Wilson, ed., Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Chicago (1974).
8. E. Fermi, Am. J. Phys. 20, 536 (1952); https://doi.org/AJPIAS
see appendices I and II.
9. C. Allerdice, E. R. Trapnell, The First Pile, document DOE/ NE‐0046, US Dept. of Energy, Washington, D.C. (1982).
10. A. Wattenberg, Bull. At. Sci., December 1982, p. 22.
11. E. Fermi, Metallurgical Laboratory report CP‐387, monthly report of Physics Division, Manhattan Engineering District documents, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

More about the authors

Albert Wattenberg, University of Illinois, Urbana‐Champaign.