The Brookhaven nuclear reactor

JAN 01, 1951

The building of the AEC’s newest graphite‐uranium pile was first proposed in 1946 and one year later construction was begun at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. The present article, written by the chairman of Brookhaven’s department of reactor science and engineering, reviews the reactor research program of the laboratory.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3067141

Lyle B. Borst

On August 22, 1950 the Brookhaven reactor became critical. The work of scientists is notable for its lack of drama. It is usually difficult to say when a piece of apparatus starts to work, and it is even more difficult to decide when an experiment is complete. The uranium chain reaction is outstanding, therefore, since the change from an inert subcritical assembly of fissionable material to a supercritical chain reactor is sudden and, to all intents and purposes, discontinuous.

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More about the authors

Lyle B. Borst, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brookhaven National Laboratory.