Enrico Fermi of a self-sustaining nuclear reaction were unknown, so it seemed inadvisable to build the first nuclear reactor on the University of Chicago campus in the middle of the city. Compton found a location in the Argonne Woods Forest Preserve, about from Chicago. Stone & Webster was contracted to develop the site, but the work was halted by an industrial dispute. Fermi then persuaded Compton that he could build the reactor in the squash court under the stands of the University of Chicago's Stagg Field. Construction of the pile began on 6 November 1942, and Chicago Pile-1 went critical on 2
Enrico Fermi on Theoretical Physics began in Washington, D.C. under the joint auspices of George Washington University and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. There, the news on nuclear fission was spread even further, fostering many more experimental demonstrations. French scientists Hans von Halban, Lew Kowarski, and Frédéric Joliot-Curie had demonstrated that uranium bombarded by neutrons emitted more neutrons than it absorbed, suggesting the possibility of a chain reaction. Fermi and Anderson did so too a few weeks later. Leó Szilárd obtained of uranium oxide from Canadian radium producer Eldorado Gold Mines Limited, allowing Fermi and Anderson to conduct experiments with fission on