Chicago Pile-1 Chicago Pile-1 Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The reactor's development was part of the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II. It was built by the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, under the west viewing stands of the original Stagg Field. Fermi described the apparatus as "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers". The reactor was assembled in November 1942, by a team that
Enrico Fermi December. The shape of the pile was intended to be roughly spherical, but as work proceeded Fermi calculated that criticality could be achieved without finishing the entire pile as planned. This experiment was a landmark in the quest for energy, and it was typical of Fermi's approach. Every step was carefully planned, every calculation meticulously done. When the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was achieved, Compton made a coded phone call to James B. Conant, the chairman of the National Defense Research Committee. To continue the research where it would not pose a public health hazard, the reactor was disassembled