Featured Henry Moore - Nuclear Energy

Was just on the University of Chicago campus with a friend. He is from NYC so no knowledge of the University. I mentioned to him that it was the birthplace of the Nuclear age with the Pile-1 experiment and that there was a monument on the original site somewhere. Low and behold, a couple blocks later we find the monument with this sculpture by Henry Moore, entitled, Nuclear Energy. It is now the site of their library with the dome portion in the background here (pic is not mine).



Here is a drawing of the original experiment that changed our world.

 

I remember seeing that on TV. wasn't it like they pulled rods out of the pile to start fusion then they hoped like hell when they pushed the rods back in it would stop? Or something like that.

 

Fission.

It was an unknown.

 

Last time I went fission I caught 2 catfish.

 

There's a full scale plaster maquette of that statue in the Art Gallery of Ontario (and another in the Tate). Moore gave a large number of plaster maquettes to the AGO. It was to be a hands-on sculpture gallery but it became pretty obvious, pretty quick, that they wouldn't last long with that policy. Now, it's strictly hands off.

That picture of the pile: it's almost a Buck Rogers approach to nuclear energy, isn't it. Can you imagine such a set-up today?