This Day in History, 1942: Atomic Pile

[mabfan]

Sixty-three years ago today, Enrico Fermi created the first artificial nuclear chain reaction in his laboratory beneath the football stadium at the University of Chicago. The experiment was the precursor to the eventual construction of the atomic bomb. Upon succesful completion of the experiment, a coded message was transmitted to President Roosevelt: "The Italian navigator has landed in the new world."

From This Day in History

Comments

[fontosaurus.livejournal.com]

Hahahaha...I gotta stop reading these before the caffeine hits the brain. I saw the title of the post and went all Homer Simpson: "Mmmmmmm....atomic pie."

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for my first laugh of the morning...

[ithych.livejournal.com]

They now have a rather bizarre commemorative statue at the location, which I could see from my dorm room window across the street during my freshman year. Disposable-camera-toting tourists can often be found flocking around it. People do very strange things in the face of historical significance.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

I'm curious now -- what does the statue look like?

I spent the summer of 1989 working at Los Alamos National Laboratory. It was cool being in a place of historical significance.

[ithych.livejournal.com]

It looks something like a mushroom cloud and something like a skull. I suppose that's what the artist intended, but it's still mildly ominous.