Are Form 8655 Designate 2024

The world's first self-sustaining nuclear reaction did not take place in a laboratory, nor did it occur in some remote desert. Though that might make sense if you're about to attempt to control a power that no one has ever attempted to control before, instead, on December 2nd, 1942, a team of 49 scientists and students, led by Enrico Fermi, activated the world's first nuclear reactor in a converted squash court beneath the football stands of Stagg field at the University of Chicago, yes, Chicago. Chicago dubbed "Chicago Pile One," the nuclear reactor built by Fermi's team was hardly the complex machine you might expect. It contained no mechanical parts or wires, and in the 20 or so minutes it operated, it generated roughly 1/2 a watt of power, just enough to power a lamp. Four years earlier, German scientists had become the first to accomplish nuclear fission by bombarding atoms of uranium with neutrons to split their nuclei. This caused a release of energy and additional neutrons that then split other nuclei to begin a chain reaction. But no one figured out how to harness that power, which many scientists correctly assumed could be used to build powerful atomic weapons. Fermi's pile consisted of alternating layers of uranium pellets and graphite. Uranium was the fuel emitting neutrons that every so often would strike the nuclei of other uranium atoms and foster the chain reaction. The graphite acted like a moderator of sorts, slowing down the neutrons, which made it easier for them to strike other uranium nuclei. The key, of course (and this is a very important key), is to figure out a way to start, stop, and regulate this chain reaction. Fermi found his answer in the form of cadmium rods, which naturally absorb neutrons during the fission...