Fall 2017 Lectures on CP-1 and its Impacts
On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi led an experiment on the University of Chicago campus that provided scientific proof that a nuclear chain reaction could be initiated, sustained and controlled. The implications of this accomplishment were and continue to be far-reaching. Scientifically, the experiment catapulted forward the fields of nuclear physics and engineering, paved the way for such new fields as radiation biology, and played a central role in launching the era of “big science” and national laboratories. Commercially, the experiment laid the basis for the nuclear energy industry. More controversially, the experiment was an integral part of the development of nuclear fission weapons, which, through the Manhattan Project, were first manufactured in the U.S. and then deployed in a theater of war.
Location: Maria Goeppert-Mayer Lecture Hall, KPTC 106
Thursday, October 5, 2017, 4pm
Nuclear Physics: Then and Now
Barbara Jacak, UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Thursday, October 12, 2017, 4pm
Nuclear Energy (co-sponsored by the Enrico Fermi Institute)
Carlo Rubbia, Nobel Prize in Physics 1984
Thursday, October 19, 2017, 4pm
Dear Maria, Oh My, How Particle Physics has Changed
Melissa Franklin, Harvard University
Thursday, October 26, 2017, 4pm
The Fallout of Chicago Pile-1
Robert (Bo) Jacobs, Hiroshima Peace Institute and Hiroshima City University
Thursday, November 2, 2017, 4pm
"Atoms for Peace" in Medicine and Biology
Chin-Tu Chen, University of Chicago
Wednesday, November 8, 2017, 1:30pm
Projecting Risk into the Future: Failure of a Geologic Repository and the Sinking of the Titanic
Rodney Ewing, Stanford University
Thursday, November 16, 2017, 4pm
CP-1: The 'Big Bang' of Big Science
Eric Isaacs, University of Chicago
Thursday, November 30, 2017, 4pm
Enrico Fermi: The Pope of Physics
Bettina Hoerlin and Gino Segrè
For videos see:
http://kersten.uchicago.edu/event_video/colloquia/index_colloquia.html