And, why would Fermi risk the chance of any nuclear mishap at a Chicago university in the first place? The inner workings of Chicago Pile 1 For several weeks in the winter of 1942 Fermi’s ...

This was the world’s first uranium pile. Within it, if all went well, would rage the first nuclear chain reaction. Physicist Enrico Fermi, Italian-born Nobel Prizewinner, was sure that all would ...

Fermi called his crude nuclear reactor a “pile.” Each layer of it had quantities of uranium surrounded by graphite, a crystalline form of carbon. The graphite would serve as a “moderator ...

At the University of Chicago, Fermi worked with a team to find a way to control the chain reaction. He did this by setting up the equipment -- atomic pile -- so that he could insert a neutron ...

A painting of Enrico Fermi and his colleagues overseeing construction of Chicago Pile-1. Credit: Fotosearch/Getty Images As the Manhattan Project got underway, several things became apparent.

What was Christopher Nolan thinking? In directing “Oppenheimer,” which has garnered 13 Academy Award nominations, Nolan relegates Enrico Fermi — the true architect of the nuclear age — to ...

NEWPORT — DTE Energy’s 40-year-old Fermi 2 nuclear power plant in Newport was granted its first license renewal. A 20-year license renewal was approved in 2016 by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory ...

DTE Energy shut down its Fermi 2 nuclear plant in Monroe County on Sunday after a leak was detected in the drywell area that surrounds the reactor about 30 miles south of Detroit. The public is ...