Italian-American physicist who led the Chicago Pile team
Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch
Explained nuclear fission in 1938–39
Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann
Discovered fission in 1938
Plate 083
1942
Chicago, Obninsk, Cumbria
No photograph is shown for this exhibition. The museum displays an image only where it can show the object honestly.
About this date
Chicago Pile-1 achieved the first self-sustaining chain reaction on 2 December 1942. The first nuclear plant to supply a power grid, at Obninsk, USSR, began operating in 1954. Calder Hall in the UK followed in 1956.
About credit
Hahn received the 1944 Nobel Prize for the discovery of fission; many historians say that Lise Meitner’s contribution deserved recognition.
Chapter II
The world before
Life before Nuclear Power
Electricity came from coal, oil, gas and hydropower.
II
The human achievement
How it came about
Fermi’s team stacked graphite and uranium in a squash court at the University of Chicago. Cadmium rods controlled the reaction. The first commercial-scale plants followed in the 1950s. Accidents at Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986) and Fukushima (2011) shaped public opinion.
III
Understanding the invention
How it works
Nuclear Power, explained in two steps.
01
Step 01 of 02
Chain reaction
A neutron splits a uranium nucleus, releasing more neutrons and energy.
Chain reaction
Control
IV
The transformation
What changed for humanity
Energy
Nuclear plants now supply about 9% of world electricity.
Politics
The same science underlies nuclear weapons.
Nuclear power can generate large amounts of electricity with low carbon emissions, while raising waste, safety and weapon concerns.
V
Before and after
Life before and after Nuclear Power
Before
Burning coal or gas.
After
Using heat from fission.
On larger screens, drag the divider (or use the arrow keys) to give more room to the world before or after.
VI
Its legacy
What came after
MHI 083
Nuclear Power
Beyond the collection
Medical isotopes
Reactors produce isotopes used in diagnosis and treatment.
Beyond the collection
Fusion research
Aims to mimic the Sun for cleaner power.
VII
Human stories
The people and the moments
Success announced by phone
After the first reaction, Arthur Compton phoned James Conant: “The Italian navigator has landed in the New World.” The reply: “How were the natives?” “Very friendly.”
Where accounts differ, this museum follows the documented record and says so.
