Tech Science Life Social Good Entertainment Deals Shopping Travel Search

Home > Entertainment > Movies

'Oppenheimer': Yes, there really was a nuclear reactor under a

football field.
You can visit the site of the first-ever manmade nuclear reactor in Chicago.

By Belen Edwards  on July 22, 2023

All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Mashable may earn an a iliate commission.

Cillian Murphy in "Oppenheimer." Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

For two years of my time as a student at the University of Chicago, my dorm building,
my cafeteria, and the library where I worked all stood on the same block as the site of
the world's first-ever manmade nuclear reactor.

Upon first glance, you wouldn't really know just how much this stretch of land in
Chicago's Hyde Park shaped the Atomic Age. Between the hustle and bustle of
students, you might be more distracted by the crayon-bright colors of the Max
Palevsky dorms, the imposing brutalist architecture of the Regenstein Library, or even
the glass dome of the Mansueto Library. Look past those, however, and you'll see a
bronze statue by Henry Moore, titled "Nuclear Energy," commemorating the
construction of the reactor — and the moment in 1942 when it went critical.

SEE ALSO: 'Oppenheimer' review: Ambitious, deeply Nolan, deeply flawed 

That same nuclear reactor makes an ever-so-brief appearance in Christopher Nolan's

Oppenheimer, when physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) journeys to
Chicago to check out his Manhattan Project colleagues' progress. He encounters
physicists like Enrico Fermi (Danny Deferrari) and Leo Szilard (Máté Haumann), who
confirm that they have successfully engineered the first manmade nuclear reaction.
How did they do it? With Chicago Pile-1, or CP-1: a reactor made of bricks of graphite,
built under a football field on an active college campus.

The scene barely takes up any time in the three-hour-long epic that is Oppenheimer,
but the science behind it is crucial to the creation of the atomic bomb. Not only that,
but the construction of CP-1 is fascinating enough that it could easily be its own movie.
How did it work? Did it leave any radiation on the UChicago campus? And perhaps
most strangely of all, why was it built under a football field?

What is CP-1, and why was it important to the

Manha an Project?

A painting of Enrico Fermi and his colleagues overseeing construction of Chicago Pile-1. Credit: Fotosearch/Ge y Images

ADVERTISEMENT

As the Manhattan Project got underway, several things became apparent. First,
scientists had to determine whether controlling a nuclear chain reaction was even
possible.

The principle of a chain reaction was already well understood by this point. "If very
heavy nuclei — in this case uranium — absorb a neutron, they will fission, and they will
break into pieces and give up a certain amount of energy so that the nuclei fly off and
everything gets hotter," Peter Littlewood, Chair of the UChicago Department of
Physics, explained to Mashable in a phone interview. "For every nucleus that fissures,
you generate three extra neutrons. And if these neutrons get captured by another, then
you get nine and you keep on building. That's what we call a chain reaction."

On top of figuring out how to control such a reaction, the scientists also needed enough
fissile material, such as plutonium or uranium, to place in the test bomb, as well as the
bombs that the U.S. government would go on to drop over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Enter CP-1. In November of 1942, Fermi and other members of the UChicago's
Metallurgical Laboratory — which studied plutonium — constructed CP-1 on a squash
court under the west football stands of the University's Stagg Field. Stagg was once
host to UChicago's football team. However, Fermi and colleagues didn't have to worry
about interfering with football games or practice given that University President
Robert Maynard Hutchins had ended the fairly dominant varsity football program in
1939.

SEE ALSO: Los Alamos: The secretive lab that built ‘the bomb’ now scours Mars for
signs of life

"I think it is a good thing for the country to have one important university discontinue
football," Hutchins told students in a 1940 address. "There is no doubt that, on the
whole, the game has been a major handicap to education in the United States." (The
sport returned in 1969, although by then, the old Stagg Field had been replaced by the
Regenstein Library.)

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks to UChicago's sudden aversion to athletics, construction on CP-1 continued

until December 2, 1942, when the reactor produced the first manmade, self-sustaining
nuclear chain reaction. With the knowledge that such a a reaction was possible,
construction began on a nuclear reactor in Hanford, Washington, where plutonium
production for the Trinity Test bomb and the bomb dropped over Nagasaki took place.
CP-1 itself was not responsible for any of the plutonium production.

"CP-1 was designed as an experiment. It wasn't designed to do anything other than

prove that the principle worked," Peter Littlewood, Chair of the UChicago Department
of Physics, told Mashable in a phone interview. "But they were so confident that it
worked that they had already designed the Hanford reactor before the experiment was
completed." Construction on Hanford only took 18 months.

How did CP-1 work?

CP-1, according to "Oppenheimer." Credit: Screenshot: Universal Pictures

Fermi himself described CP-1 as "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers." So
how did such a "crude" structure, 20 feet wide and 25 feet tall, create a monumental
chain reaction?

ADVERTISEMENT

On top of the graphite blocks, CP-1 also contained smaller pellets of uranium, which
would help initiate the chain reaction in the first place. The graphite served as a
"moderator" for the reaction. "It slows down neutrons and makes them more easy to
absorb by uranium atoms," Littlewood explained in an e-mail.

But the ultimate form of control came in the form of long wooden rods coated in
cadmium, which absorbed the neutrons. "When the control rods are all pushed in,
nothing happens," said Littlewood. "Then you withdraw the control rods, and every
time you do that, there's a little burst of energy." Fermi and his team monitored these
bursts of energy, watching the power build up and calculating how far to pull the
control rods out until the energy was self-sustaining.

Were the CP-1 experiments safe?

Let's take a field trip to a nuclear reactor...under a football field. Credit: Screenshot: Universal Pictures

Upon learning that I was spending a large chunk of my time at UChicago hanging out
around the site of an old nuclear reactor, I was mildly alarmed. Would I graduate from
school with an extra head?

ADVERTISEMENT

On the one hand, every tour group passing the Moore statue gets assured that the site
is not a radioactive hazard. On the other hand, an old professor of mine once told my
class a rumor that the café in the Regenstein Library had been moved from the
basement to the first floor due to traces of radiation found in the basement. (To put it
in perspective: I and many other UChicago students have spent more time in that
library basement than Cillian Murphy does staring right into the camera in
Oppenheimer.)

Related Stories

'Oppenheimer' features 'sex as only Nolan could stage it.' What does that mean?

Albert Einstein is important to 'Oppenheimer,' but not for the reason you'd think

Barbenheimer shocker: What 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer' have in common

How to support the writers' and SAG strikes online and o

The 'Oppenheimer’ cast on shooting the film's most remarkable moments

Luckily, Littlewood assured me that that wasn't the case. "I have heard that rumor, but
not really from a reputable source, so I don't buy it."

He continued: "The other thing is that radiation is everywhere, and it's very easy to
find. Could there have been some radioactive contamination that was permanent? It
would depend on how well they cleaned up the fissile material or what they did with it.
At the time, and certainly later in the Cold War, we were extraordinarily lax in taking
care of radioactive material... But the amount of radiation which was created by CP-1
would probably have been quite tiny." Graphite could also have absorbed some of the
radiation, acting as protection in a setting that otherwise lacked shielding.

ADVERTISEMENT

Adding to these assurances? In a 2019 NPR story, UChicago's radiation safety officer
James Marsicek used a Geiger counter to measure the radiation around what used to
be Stagg Field. The counter consistently measured .02 millirems per hour, simply
picking up the background radiation that naturally occurs around us.

None of this is information that you'll get in Oppenheimer — a film already filled to the
brim with decades' worth of science — but it's crucial to understand just how much
effort went into the Manhattan Project. One quick glimpse of CP-1 in the movie hides
stories of abandoned football fields, hastily constructed power plants, and even worries
(now soothed) about radioactive libraries. But Littlewood is quick to point out that CP-
1's role in the Manhattan Project is only part of its impact.

When CP-1 went critical, Littlewood said that "it became clear, at that point, that you
could use nuclear power to generate energy. Following the war, there was work from
the government to do that. That involved setting up what became Argonne National
Lab, which is about 25 miles southwest of the city. Argonne National Lab was the place
which designed and built the first set of nuclear reactors and formed the prototypes of
things which have spread around the world. So it's very much a case of swords into
plowshares."

As for the UChicago Physics Department's thoughts on Oppenheimer? "We're

physicists, so we're not used to getting excited," Littlewood said. "I'm sure we'll
probably do a private screening of it at some point for our students.

Oppenheimer is now in theaters.

Topics Film

Belen Edwards
Entertainment Reporter

Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV

with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy
goodness.

Recommended For You

Confused about federal student loan forgiveness? Here's what
you need to know.
Reminder: Student loan payments restart in October.
08/25/2023 By Chase DiBenedetto

AdultFriendFinder is essentially a porn hookup site with some

big issues
Finding quick sexual encounters shouldn't be this easy.
08/02/2023 By Mashable Team

The best desk chairs for your home o ice set-up

Working from home never felt so good.
08/29/2023 By Joseph Green and Matt Ford

KiwiCo in Australia: Everything you need to know

Give your kids a kickstart in science, technology, engineering, arts and maths,
with projects and activities that inspire.
08/31/2023 By Mashable Contributor

'Oppenheimer' review: Ambitious, deeply Nolan, deeply

flawed 
Cillian Murphy and Florence Pugh are striking, but is that enough?
07/19/2023 By Kristy Puchko

More in Entertainment
New Labor Day deals just dropped: Save on MacBooks and
other laptops, Dyson vacuums, and more
Cure your end-of-summer blues.
09/02/2023 By Stacia Datskovska

Massive emergency alert test message to be sent to US cell

phones, TVs, and radios
Don't panic, it's only a test.
08/29/2023 By Cecily Mauran

REI is having a major Labor Day Sale: Snag tents, hiking

apparel, smart watches, and more
A li le treat for outdoor lovers to end this summer on a high note.
08/28/2023 By Stacia Datskovska

The Print Bar in Australia: Everything you need to know

Same day t-shirt printing is more accessible and a ordable in Australia than you
might think, with much more on o er than just shirts.
08/20/2023 By Mashable Contributor

The surprising origins of your f*cking favorite swear words

Know your history.
08/15/2023 By Christine Wang

Trending on Mashable
High-speed object just crashed into Jupiter, footage shows
A collision hundreds of millions of miles away.
09/02/2023 By Mark Kaufman

Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for September 4

Here are some tips and tricks to help you find the answer to "Wordle" #807.
11 hours ago By Mashable Team

'Quordle' today: Here are the answers and hints for September
4, 2023
Stuck on 'Quordle' #588? We'll give you the hints and tips you need (and also the
answers).
14 hours ago By Mashable Team

Wordle today: Here's the answer and hints for September 3

Here are some tips and tricks to help you find the answer to "Wordle" #806.
09/03/2023 By Mashable Team

'Starfield' has everything you could want, except a reason to

keep playing
'Skyrim' in space sounds like such a good idea until you play it.
08/31/2023 By Alex Perry

The biggest stories of the day delivered Email Address Subscribe

to your inbox.
This newsle er may contain advertising, deals, or a iliate links. Subscribing to a newsle er indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and
Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsle ers at any time.

TECH SCIENCE LIFE SOCIAL GOOD ENTERTAINMENT BEST PRODUCTS DEALS

About Mashable Contact Us We're Hiring Newsle ers Sitemap

Mashable supports Group Black and its mission to increase greater diversity in media voices and media ownership. Group
Black's collective includes Essence, TheShadeRoom and Afro-Punk.

©2005–2023 Mashable, Inc., a Zi Davis company. All Rights Reserved.

Mashable is a registered trademark of Zi Davis and may not be used by third parties without express wri en permission.

About Zi Davis Privacy Policy Terms of Use Advertise Accessibility Do Not Sell My Personal Information AdChoices