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Object

Chicago Pile-1

A large, rectangular structure with a grid of protruding elements stands on a wooden floor, illuminated by spotlights against a dark background.

The first artificial nuclear reactor, built under the west grandstand of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. It was an unshielded graphite-and-uranium lattice — about forty thousand machined graphite blocks embedded with six tons of uranium metal and forty tons of uranium oxide. It went critical at 3:25 p.m. on 2 December 1942, ran for twenty-eight minutes at half a watt, and was dismantled the following year.

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