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
McMaster Nuclear Reactor McMaster Nuclear Reactor The McMaster Nuclear Reactor (MNR) is a 5MW pool-type reactor located on the campus of McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. MNR began operating in April 1959, as the first university based research reactor in the Commonwealth of Nations, and remains the highest-flux reactor in a university environment in Canada to this day. The reactor consists of two connected pools; the core can be located and operated in either one. This allows the core to be moved away from experimental apparatus for maintenance. MNR is an example of a reactor where the core is visible while the