United States of America · Science / Physics. Chronological records rendered directly from the World History Database.
Vannevar Bush holds a meeting to organize an accelerated research project, managed by Arthur Compton, Harold Urey develops research into gaseous diffusion as uranium enrichment & Ernest Lawrence investigates separation methods
Vannevar Bush holds a meeting to organize an accelerated research project, managed by Arthur Compton, Harold Urey develops research into gaseous diffusion as uranium enrichment & Ernest Lawrence investigates separation methods
Oppenheimer is given the title "Coordinator of Rapid Rupture", specifically referring to the propagation of a fast neutron chain reaction in an atomic bomb
Robert Oppenheimer convenes a summer conference at the University of California, Berkeley to discuss the design of a fission bomb, Edward Teller brings up the possibility of a hydrogen bomb as a major point of discussion
A team led by Enrico Fermi, for whom Fermilab is named, initiate the first artificial self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction in an experimental nuclear reactor named Chicago Pile-1
Leads a team which creates the 1st controlled nuclear reaction. Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor goes critical at the University of Chicago under the leadership and design of Enrico Fermi
Construction begins for the first reactor at the Hanford Site
Project W-47, later called Project Alberta set up to plan delivery of the bomb
Appointed head of the Manhattan Project by Roosevelt to develop the atomic bomb
Fermi at Los Alamos tests the world's third reactor, LOPO, the first aqueous homogeneous reactor, and the first fueled by enriched uranium
The first nuclear explosion, the "Trinity" test of an implosion-style plutonium-based nuclear weapon known as "the gadget", near Alamogordo, New Mexico
The Smyth Report was the common name given to an administrative history written by physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Allied World War II effort to develop the atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project
Oppenheimer resigns as director of Los Alamos, and is succeeded by Norris Bradbury
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