Enrico Fermi’s experiment, setting off the first nuclear chain reaction, provided the blueprint for the plutonium bomb. In his commemoration of this little known event that changed the world, the historian of technology, Iain Boal, describes the mindset of the early nuclear scientists who began releasing the most long lived toxic substances on earth. He also sketches the beginning of resistance to nuclear weapons in SDS and CND.
TUC Radio ARCHIVE, last offered in 2011.
Exactly 25 years after that experiment, with Fermi already dead of radiation induced leukemia, a statue by Henry Moore was unveiled on December 2, 1967, at the University of Chicago, to commemorate the first self sustained nuclear chain reaction.
Boal describes the fascinating clash of ideas, from the early anti nuclear resistance by SDS students in the US and the British CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), to the visual impression of Moore’s statue that seems to depict a skull plus storm trooper helmet plus mushroom cloud. Ignoring the early resistance to nuclear power scientists still envisioned thousands of nuclear power plants while discussing already how one could possibly keep nuclear waste safe for tens of thousands of years.
Iain Boal presents a chapter from his upcoming book: The Long Theft. He is co-editor of Resisting the Virtual Life, published by City Lights Books and the author of the history of the bicycle: The Green Machine (2011).
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