When I saw the headline on this Wall Street Journal opinion piece referring to the “Chicago pile”, I thought they were talking about the City Council. Imagine my surprise when it was about the influence of Fermi’s ground-breaking nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago on the Manhattan Project:
This weekend marks the 75th anniversary of what might be the 20th century’s greatest technological achievement. Working in wartime secrecy at the University of Chicago, a group of scientists built the first self-sustaining nuclear reactor out of wood, graphite and uranium. On Dec. 2, 1942, they succeeded in triggering the first sustained man-made nuclear chain reaction.
The experiment—called Chicago Pile 1, or CP-1—validated the theoretical ideas of scientists. The experiment was the first step to unleashing the destructive power of nuclear weapons, while also demonstrating the potential for an entirely new source of energy. It marked the start of an exciting era of collaboration and ambition in American science.
In many ways, CP-1 was a monument to scientific impatience. In the summer of 1939, Albert Einstein sent a letter (ghostwritten by fellow physicist Leo Szilard) to Franklin D. Roosevelt. The letter warned that Germany was at work on a new weapon of almost unimaginable power and urged the president to take steps to accelerate America’s research on nuclear energy.
Perhaps we should be referring to the City Council as “CP-2”.
What’s the destructive potential of CP-2, it can’t compare to the city destroying potential of nuclear weapons….
The City Council has done a pretty fair job of destroying Chicago.
My nuclear engineer wife informs me there were five Chicago Piles in all. So I guess that bumps the council down to the #6 spot.