Enrico Fermi was using a 1/M plot ("one over M") to monitor the approach to criticality and predict the critical conditions. The 1/M is still used by reactor engineers and operators when performing start-ups.
Thank you for uploading, to hear the story from the men who were there adds a priceless quality to this video. Harold Agnew & Warren Nyers, are two giants in their fields, that is, in the military & Civil use of nuclear energy respectively.
To be accurate, this should read "world's first manmade self-sustaining, controlled nuclear chain reaction." Evidence has been found for self-sustaining, controlled fission reactions deep underground in Gabon, West Africa. The reactions lasted hundreds of thousands of years and averaged 100kW thermal.
My father was part of that group, a 17 yr, old just out of high school. He passed away, the oldest living person who had been present when that occurred... He was 94 yrs old, and made it to the 75th anniversary.
[Correction edit 31 Jan 2022 - George did not make this particular video; he made the film "The Day Tomorrow Began."] My stepfather, George W. Tressel, was commissioned by Argonne to make a film for the 25th anniversary of CP-1 called "CP-1 The Day Tomorrow Began." A number of the drawings used in this video were created for the film. George had some amazing stories about the making of "The Day Tomorrow Began" - one of which was how he obtained the only color film of the Hiroshima explosion. Months had passed since they out a national call for any photos, drawings or other artifacts from the early atomic age. One day they get a call from the guard desk saying someone is claiming to have color film of the explosion. Well, the crew at first dismissed this claim because one, color film was still new at the time and exceedingly expensive - very few people could afford it. In addition, they knew there was no film of the explosion because of a technical problem with the official camera. But then they asked the guard the name of the person and got back, “something Agnew.” Indeed, it was the Harold Agnew and they fell all over themselves racing to get downstairs. Agnew flew on the support plane, the “Great Artiste.” But unbeknownst to anyone, he smuggled aboard his own personal movie camera. And of course, being one of the heads of the project he had access to color film. Gen. Groves was furious to learn Agnew had taken film without permission and confiscated the film. After much discussion Groves allowed Agnew to have a copy. Somewhere along the way the original was lost but Agnew still had his copy and provided it to George. Another important story about this film: around the 28th minute is the long, steady tilting shot of the mushroom cloud. But how did they take such a steady shot? They didn’t. Remember, this film was taken from a handheld camera on a propeller-driven airplane racing away from the scene. “Steadicam” wouldn’t be invented for decades yet; Agnew’s footage was shakier than the "Blair Witch Project". All the way back to his days at experimental TV station WBKB (Chicago) George was inventing cutting-edge camera and production equipment. To create that modern Hollywood “Steadicam” shot George invented and built the equipment to manually adjust the position of the film frame-by-frame and re-photograph it into what you see now. Sadly, George passed away at his home in Silver Spring, MD, at the age of 93 on November 17, 2019. George had many, many other accomplishments that have touched untold millions of people’s lives such as creating the very first “news ticker/crawl” for television (WBKB) and being the driving force in bringing closed-captioning to TV and film for the hearing impaired. We miss him dearly already
A big thank you for this video ! I have a question relating to this : a few decades ago, I saw a fiction reenacting the life and work of Enrico Fermi and his fellow geniuses , including the building of the Chicago Pile 1. Anyone knows the title of this movie ? Could it be "day one" (1989) ? Anyway, it's not "shadow masters" which focuses more on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos and has nothing of CP1.
Excellent question. Not sure at the moment, but can ask the question once Monday pops up. If you can, send the question in an email to media@anl.gov. We'll try to track it down for you.
Aerospace is real application of nuclear power to have a great extraplanetary civilization since eventually high energy reactions will lead to ways to circumvent the light barrier of interdimensional to go beyond our universe since real issue is anything nuclear is often restricted.
Thank all of you wonderful men for such things nightmares are made of. I wonder if they were here today to see or could foresee the absolute mess of toxic soup that they created and how it has poisoned all the land and water so quietly would the do it all over again. The cancer, birth defects or the fact that it will be here poisoning this earth long after we are gone....
It might be better, or more accurate, to realize that some of the things that humans do are forces of nature. "Forces of civilization", you might say; to be cold and clinical, whenever you have a billion human brains exchanging ideas between their neurons, stuff like this is gonna happen. If Fermi hadn't done this, someone else would have. Its not complicated. Personally, I believe that the forces of social media are going to transform mankind far more deeply than atomic energy every did; and it will be a much scarier, and much more dangerous ride. We don't have a cadmium-coated control rod for facebook and youtube. :-/
The discovery of the elements, elements properties is the progress of science. Inevitable. Humans are chiefly tool users, and with this we could make new and better tools. If we destroy ourselves with it, yes indeed the worst discovery, if we save the planet from an asteroid hitting the planet, then the best discovery. With humans being stupid and shortsighted, I think we will poison everything with radiation, so just deserts.
Enrico Fermi was using a 1/M plot ("one over M") to monitor the approach to criticality and predict the critical conditions. The 1/M is still used by reactor engineers and operators when performing start-ups.
This is so cool thank you for archiving! It seems like such a non glamorous event for man gaining the power of the atom!
Thank you for uploading, to hear the story from the men who were there adds a priceless quality to this video. Harold Agnew & Warren Nyers, are two giants in their fields, that is, in the military & Civil use of nuclear energy respectively.
These videos are wonderful living history, thank you!
Thank you very much for honour to see this video
So glad you enjoyed it!
To be accurate, this should read "world's first manmade self-sustaining, controlled nuclear chain reaction."
Evidence has been found for self-sustaining, controlled fission reactions deep underground in Gabon, West Africa. The reactions lasted hundreds of thousands of years and averaged 100kW thermal.
This channel needs more subscribers. Liked. Subscribed.
Great lecture and responses from the audience. Congratulation.
An other gift from Italy to US: Enrico Fermi. US and Italy, friends for ever!
Hopefully only time will tell. :)
Donato80s exactly. US and Italy are friends
"Italyusa" Italy and USA are best friends
That name will haunt me..
Came here because I was riding through the Palos Height trails and stumbled across the burial site. Really cool piece of history.
Why have I never heard of this before?? This is fascinating!!
I'm writing a report on this right now - so cool to hear about it from the mouths of those who were there!
My father was part of that group, a 17 yr, old just out of high school. He passed away, the oldest living person who had been present when that occurred... He was 94 yrs old, and made it to the 75th anniversary.
My great grandfather was a scientist at Argonne he went with these guys up new Mexico to create the bomb
Very interesting!
[Correction edit 31 Jan 2022 - George did not make this particular video; he made the film "The Day Tomorrow Began."]
My stepfather, George W. Tressel, was commissioned by Argonne to make a film for the 25th anniversary of CP-1 called "CP-1 The Day Tomorrow Began." A number of the drawings used in this video were created for the film.
George had some amazing stories about the making of "The Day Tomorrow Began" - one of which was how he obtained the only color film of the Hiroshima explosion.
Months had passed since they out a national call for any photos, drawings or other artifacts from the early atomic age. One day they get a call from the guard desk saying someone is claiming to have color film of the explosion. Well, the crew at first dismissed this claim because one, color film was still new at the time and exceedingly expensive - very few people could afford it. In addition, they knew there was no film of the explosion because of a technical problem with the official camera. But then they asked the guard the name of the person and got back, “something Agnew.” Indeed, it was the Harold Agnew and they fell all over themselves racing to get downstairs.
Agnew flew on the support plane, the “Great Artiste.” But unbeknownst to anyone, he smuggled aboard his own personal movie camera. And of course, being one of the heads of the project he had access to color film. Gen. Groves was furious to learn Agnew had taken film without permission and confiscated the film. After much discussion Groves allowed Agnew to have a copy. Somewhere along the way the original was lost but Agnew still had his copy and provided it to George.
Another important story about this film: around the 28th minute is the long, steady tilting shot of the mushroom cloud. But how did they take such a steady shot? They didn’t. Remember, this film was taken from a handheld camera on a propeller-driven airplane racing away from the scene. “Steadicam” wouldn’t be invented for decades yet; Agnew’s footage was shakier than the "Blair Witch Project".
All the way back to his days at experimental TV station WBKB (Chicago) George was inventing cutting-edge camera and production equipment. To create that modern Hollywood “Steadicam” shot George invented and built the equipment to manually adjust the position of the film frame-by-frame and re-photograph it into what you see now.
Sadly, George passed away at his home in Silver Spring, MD, at the age of 93 on November 17, 2019.
George had many, many other accomplishments that have touched untold millions of people’s lives such as creating the very first “news ticker/crawl” for television (WBKB) and being the driving force in bringing closed-captioning to TV and film for the hearing impaired.
We miss him dearly already
Here from Josh Clark's (SYSK) podcast The End of the World series.
A big thank you for this video ! I have a question relating to this : a few decades ago, I saw a fiction reenacting the life and work of Enrico Fermi and his fellow geniuses , including the building of the Chicago Pile 1. Anyone knows the title of this movie ? Could it be "day one" (1989) ? Anyway, it's not "shadow masters" which focuses more on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos and has nothing of CP1.
Excellent question. Not sure at the moment, but can ask the question once Monday pops up. If you can, send the question in an email to media@anl.gov. We'll try to track it down for you.
@Ben Hur you might be referring to "CP-1: The Day Tomorrow Began" which can be found here: czcams.com/video/w_6K6arW3h4/video.html .
@@mikerumberg6823 YOU sir, just answered a question I was going NUTS over!!! THANK YOU!!!!!
The second old guy from CP1 called them the poison rods lol
Beatiiful
From Otto Von Hahn to Enrico Fermi has parallels to lattice assisted nuclear reactions of loading isotopic fuels into materials of today.
Today cleanrooms are critical of dust and or vibration causing havoc while back in the 1940s machinery could take abuse.
This is the genisis.
Our human lifespan is too damn short.
Then make every day count!
Aerospace is real application of nuclear power to have a great extraplanetary civilization since eventually high energy reactions will lead to ways to circumvent the light barrier of interdimensional to go beyond our universe since real issue is anything nuclear is often restricted.
"The Italian navigator has just landed in the new world. The natives are friendly."
👍👍
And at that moment, the pandora's box was opened.
5;15 - T.B.
The first nuclear reactor
Thank all of you wonderful men for such things nightmares are made of. I wonder if they were here today to see or could foresee the absolute mess of toxic soup that they created and how it has poisoned all the land and water so quietly would the do it all over again. The cancer, birth defects or the fact that it will be here poisoning this earth long after we are gone....
It might be better, or more accurate, to realize that some of the things that humans do are forces of nature. "Forces of civilization", you might say; to be cold and clinical, whenever you have a billion human brains exchanging ideas between their neurons, stuff like this is gonna happen. If Fermi hadn't done this, someone else would have. Its not complicated. Personally, I believe that the forces of social media are going to transform mankind far more deeply than atomic energy every did; and it will be a much scarier, and much more dangerous ride. We don't have a cadmium-coated control rod for facebook and youtube. :-/
@@LinasVepstas We are not having children. Look it up. The few children we have , die in the technology and drugs. that IS the end.
nonono Enrico Fermi American physicist? He was born Italian, not American :/
Certamente!
To..... B...
Eric Weinstein is a real know it all
Worst creation in human history
Nonsense.
The discovery of the elements, elements properties is the progress of science. Inevitable. Humans are chiefly tool users, and with this we could make new and better tools. If we destroy ourselves with it, yes indeed the worst discovery, if we save the planet from an asteroid hitting the planet, then the best discovery. With humans being stupid and shortsighted, I think we will poison everything with radiation, so just deserts.