B Reactor can take a tour of the reactor by advance reservation. The reactor was designed and built by E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company based on experimental designs tested by Enrico Fermi at the University of Chicago, and tests from the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It was designed to operate at 250 megawatts (thermal). The reactor occupies a footprint of (about and is tall, occupying a volume of . The reactor core itself consisted of a graphite box measuring occupying a volume of and weighing . It was penetrated horizontally through its entire length by
Enrico Fermi a workable design: a pile of uranium oxide blocks interspersed with graphite bricks. Szilárd, Anderson, and Fermi published a paper on "Neutron Production in Uranium". But their work habits and personalities were different, and Fermi had trouble working with Szilárd. Fermi was among the first to warn military leaders about the potential impact of nuclear energy, giving a lecture on the subject at the Navy Department on 18 March 1939. The response fell short of what he had hoped for, although the Navy agreed to provide $1,500 towards further research at Columbia. Later that year, Szilárd, Eugene Wigner, and Edward