Dawning of the Nuclear Age at Chicago’s “Pile-1 Reactor”
At 5:29am local time on July 16th 1945 the tranquil peace of the Nevada desert erupted in a blinding flash of light and heat. The American “Manhattan Project” had culminated in the detonation of “the gadge”, a 25 kiloton atomic weapon. With the push of a button humanity had unlocked the means of its own destruction, and neither war or geopolitics would ever be the same. Although this grand display by Doctor Robert Oppenheimer and his team ushered in the age of nuclear war, the atomic age had actually begun 3 years earlier in a sleepy corner of the University of Chicago campus.
On December 2nd 1942, working in a lab located beneath the university’s football field seating, Enrico Fermi unlocked the secrets of the atom in the world’s first self-sustaining nuclear reaction. Although atomic energy may feel like space-age science, the “Pile 1 Reactor” was nothing more than a pile of graphite blocks with a core of uranium and some hand-managed control rods. Once the rods were removed from the reactor, the critical mass of uranium was able to undergo the reaction. In the event of a run-away chain reaction, the safety mechanism for this test consisted of physicist Samuel Allison standing by with an ax to cut the ropes holding the control rods up.
Atomic energy may power the sun, and level cities with a single bomb, but mankind’s first steps into nunclear energy were on a much lower scale. The initial run of the “Pile 1” reactor lasted less than five minutes, and produced roughly 0.5 watts of energy (1/50 of the energy consumed by a very dim lightbulb). Over the next 3 years American scientists would grow this energy output exponentially, and ultimately create weapons of unimaginable destructive potential.
The nuclear age represented a leap forward in human evolution like few moments in history. We unlocked the power of the stars, and simultaneously harnessed the ability to power all of our civilization’s needs, or destroy our entire planet. That all began here with the humblest of experiments.
Today the ground-level area immediately above the former Pile-1 Reactor is marked with a large sculpture titled “Nuclear Energy” by artist Henry Moore. It’s located in a quiet little corner of the University campus surrounded by office buildings. Unless you knew what you were looking for, it would be very easy to drive past this and never grasp the significance of this monument. Knowing what it represents though, to stand here is to be made speechless. No words can sum up the importance of what happened here. Instead I found myself completely humbled as I contemplated man’s first steps in pursuit of the ultimate power. Like children playing with daddy’s gun, we tapped into the fundamental power of the universe, and assumed responsibilities for which we were ill prepared. Simply put, what happened here on that day changed everything, and altered the course of human history like few moments before or after it.
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