The abundant affects nuclear science has had on society as whole and in our everyday lives are the result of the first ever “controlled” nuclear chain reaction test held in an old squash court beneath Stagg Field at the University of Chicago in Chicago IL. Led by Enrico Fermi an Italian Physicist, the event took place on December 2nd 1942 in a small reactor called the Chicago Pile-1 which Mr. Fermi and his team of scientist created. The Chicago Pile-1 was interracial part of a secret initiative called the “Manhattan Project” to build an atomic weapon before Germany did.
Three year prior to the Chicago Pile-1 test, Germany had invaded Poland and by 1941 had a heavy-water plant, uranium, and employed some of the top scientists of the world. …show more content…
Had Enrico Fermi failed to produce a controlled a “self-sustaining” chain reaction within the Chicago Pile-1, Germany may have been successful in developing the atomic bomb first and Japan may have won its war against the United States. The world as it is currently known today may have been greatly altered. Mr. Trapnell is quoted as saying “In the end, the various offspring of CP-1, the first reactor, continued its original mission: to push back and explore the frontiers of science in the never-ending quest for knowledge of the universe in which we live” (TRAPNELL, …show more content…
Additionally, as was theorized that the results of the Chicago Pile-1 would change lived for the better, scientists learned that the heat produced during the chain reaction could also be harnessed for generating long lasting electrical power. That people’s lives could be saved instead of destroyed in war all because the successful testing lead to nuclear medicine for treatment of cancer through the use of radiation. That new radiological inventions would be created that would diagnose and treat other forms of diseases, and all because of that one event that occurred within the Chicago Pile-1. The field of nuclear science is now wide open to future discoveries and NASA is even looking at using Nuclear-thermal rockets for sending a man to
Three year prior to the Chicago Pile-1 test, Germany had invaded Poland and by 1941 had a heavy-water plant, uranium, and employed some of the top scientists of the world. …show more content…
Had Enrico Fermi failed to produce a controlled a “self-sustaining” chain reaction within the Chicago Pile-1, Germany may have been successful in developing the atomic bomb first and Japan may have won its war against the United States. The world as it is currently known today may have been greatly altered. Mr. Trapnell is quoted as saying “In the end, the various offspring of CP-1, the first reactor, continued its original mission: to push back and explore the frontiers of science in the never-ending quest for knowledge of the universe in which we live” (TRAPNELL, …show more content…
Additionally, as was theorized that the results of the Chicago Pile-1 would change lived for the better, scientists learned that the heat produced during the chain reaction could also be harnessed for generating long lasting electrical power. That people’s lives could be saved instead of destroyed in war all because the successful testing lead to nuclear medicine for treatment of cancer through the use of radiation. That new radiological inventions would be created that would diagnose and treat other forms of diseases, and all because of that one event that occurred within the Chicago Pile-1. The field of nuclear science is now wide open to future discoveries and NASA is even looking at using Nuclear-thermal rockets for sending a man to