Enrico Fermi and moved to the Argonne Woods site. There Fermi directed experiments on nuclear reactions, revelling in the opportunities provided by the reactor's abundant production of free neutrons. The laboratory soon branched out from physics and engineering into using the reactor for biological and medical research. Initially, Argonne was run by Fermi as part of the University of Chicago, but it became a separate entity with Fermi as its director in May 1944. When the air-cooled X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge went critical on 4 November 1943, Fermi was on hand just in case something went wrong. The technicians woke
Enrico Fermi elements at all, but fission products. He added a footnote to this effect to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. The scientists at Columbia decided that they should try to detect the energy released in the nuclear fission of uranium when bombarded by neutrons. On 25 January 1939, in the basement of Pupin Hall at Columbia, an experimental team including Fermi conducted the first nuclear fission experiment in the United States. The other members of the team were Herbert L. Anderson, Eugene T. Booth, John R. Dunning, G. Norris Glasoe, and Francis G. Slack. The next day, the Fifth Washington Conference