Leona Woods Leona Woods Leona Harriet Woods (August 9, 1919 – November 10, 1986), later known as Leona Woods Marshall and Leona Woods Marshall Libby, was an American physicist who helped build the first nuclear reactor and the first atomic bomb. At age 23, she was the youngest and only female member of the team which built and experimented with the world's first nuclear reactor (then called a "pile"), Chicago Pile-1, in a project led by her mentor Enrico Fermi. In particular, Woods was instrumental in the construction and then utilization of geiger counters for analysis during experimentation. She was the only
Anti-nuclear movement in the United States Malibu were similar to those at Bodega Bay and were also abandoned. A small military test reactor exploded at the Stationary Low-Power Reactor Number One in Idaho Falls in January 1961, causing 3 fatalities. This was caused by a combination of dangerous reactor design plus either sabotage, operator error by experienced operators. A further partial meltdown at the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Generating Station in Michigan in 1966. In his 1963 book "Change, Hope and the Bomb", David E. Lilienthal criticized nuclear developments, particularly the nuclear industry's failure to address the nuclear waste question. He argued that it would be "...