Fall Colloquia 2017

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