News this week of a historic fusion reaction that produced more energy than was used to ignite it could move the world one step closer to a power source that doesn’t create radioactive waste as a byproduct.
This is a major advancement in the long, complicated history of nuclear energy — which has been used to create electricity but also weapons.
During World War II, the United States became concerned that Nazi scientists were close to creating an atomic bomb. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein issued an alert to then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
“A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory,” Einstein wrote.
U.S. scientists and government officials (collectively known as the Manhattan Project) had to figure out how to create a chain reaction, however, before they could build an atomic bomb of their own. That’s why on Dec. 2, 1942 — 80 years ago — a team gathered beneath the stands at Stagg Field on the University of Chicago campus to watch as the world’s first nuclear reactor — nicknamed Chicago Pile-1 — produced the world’s first sustained nuclear reaction.
You might be asking yourself — why did this happen in Chicago of all places?
Our city by the lake was an ideal location for several reasons. One, it had a huge pool of talent. Nobel Prize winner and physicist Enrico Fermi, who defected from Fascist-controlled Italy, was the team leader. Two, it was a central location away from the coasts, which were believed to be vulnerable to attack. Three, since the University of Chicago no longer had a football team, the project could be conducted in secrecy with added security on a former squash court underneath the football stadium’s stands.
Chicago’s role in the breakthrough experiment wouldn’t be revealed publicly until after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan — nearly three years later.
Though the stadium was demolished long ago, the site along Ellis Avenue south of 56th Street is a National Historic Landmark, now occupied by the Henry Moore sculpture “Nuclear Energy,” dedicated on the 25th anniversary of the chain reaction.
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— Kori Rumore, visual reporter
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Photo gallery: Birth of the Atomic Age
The pivotal event generated only half of a watt of power but paved the way for nuclear bombs and nonmilitary uses of atomic energy. See more photos.
Chicago’s role in bringing an end to WWII
A squash court under Stagg Field’s stands was available for the covert operation, the university having given up football. It was an appropriate site in 1942 for initiating the Manhattan Project, the crash course that the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration had decreed, and Enrico Fermi, an Italian physicist, was the logical choice to determine whether an atomic bomb was possible. Read more.
James Sturm: ‘The trick was to achieve a chain reaction but not one that would run dangerously out of control’
Ted Petry saw the atom split for the first time
For Ted Petry, working under the stands at Stagg Field was his first job out of high school and a good one, considering there was a war on. What the recruiter didn’t mention, probably didn’t know, was that the Tilden Technical High School graduate would become part of scientific history in that improvised laboratory, shaping the building blocks and even fetching the uranium for the inaugural human-made nuclear reactor. Read more.
From 2018: Ted Petry, last surviving witness to first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, dies at 94
Letter: ‘I was a U. of C. student when the atom split’
From 1996: Alexander Langsdorf, Jr; worked on atomic bomb
Unleashing the atomic age
Though the Atomic Age was born under the stands of the University of Chicago’s football stadium on Dec. 2, 1942, that milestone wasn’t reported in the next morning’s Tribune, or any other newspaper. Read more.
From Aug. 17, 1945: U. of C. reveals story of work on atomic bomb
From Oct. 26, 1946: Atomic age born in Chicago, is Army decision
Aug. 6, 1945: U.S. drops the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan
It dropped a second bomb three days later on Nagasaki, killing another 70,000. Japan surrendered Aug. 15, ending World War II and its nearly half-century of aggression in Asia. Read more.
Secret experiments in a Cook County preserve aided atomic bomb efforts — and left nuclear waste behind
Notably, Red Gate Woods — not Stagg Field — would have been the site of the first nuclear reaction if it hadn’t been for a labor strike that left the buildings at Site A unfinished. Read more.
The story of how the Doomsday Clock began ticking 75 years ago, the brainchild of a Chicago artist
Martyl Langsdorf designed just one magazine cover, but it has had considerable staying power. A prolific painter of abstract and figurative canvases, she was commissioned 75 years ago by the scientists who built the atomic bomb that ended World War II. Read more.
From January: Doomsday Clock’s hands remain at 100 seconds to midnight
Rick Kogan: ‘The Doomsday Clock at 75’ explores how the Chicago-born cultural icon keeps tick, tick, ticking away
A solution for the world’s energy crisis? Sounds familiar.
International leaders — and criminals — fighting over a “cold-fusion energy formula” was the basis for the 1997 action movie “The Saint,” which starred Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue. Read the Tribune review.
Celebrating Atomic Cake, the iconic South Side creation that defies gravity
The Atomic Cake has been the centerpiece of choice at birthday celebrations and other rites of passage, from first to last, for generations of Chicagoans on the South Side. Born in the optimistic Atomic Era for which it is named, and coupled with the baby boom, it’s no wonder it became an iconic birthday cake. Yet, perhaps because of a geographic and generational divide, many Chicagoans have never heard of it. Read more.
Celebrate our city’s (fake) birthday with a Chicago-style atomic cake
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