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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maxwell who wrote (39094)	10/12/1998 8:01:00 PM
From: Yousef	Respond to of 1572366

Low Priest, Re: "Fermi demonstrated the fist atomic pile at University of Chicago." Maybe Maxwell, AMD will demonstrate tomorrow the first K7 "pile" ... What do you think ?? I can hardly wait for the "HYPE" ... BTW Maxwell, what do you think of Brian's "haircut". <ggg> Make It So, Yousef

To: Maxwell who wrote (39094)	10/13/1998 12:39:00 AM
From: Paul Engel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572366

Maxwell - Re: "Fermi demonstrated the fist atomic pile at University of Chicago. " Fermi created his FIRST atomic pile in a laboratory at Columbia University. The "pile" was built to measure the neutron "reproduction factor", k, for a "pile" of graphite bricks interspersed with Uranium Oxide. The purity of the materials led to a k factor of 0.87, where 1.0 would be "critical" for neutron production - the ratio of neutrons lost from the pile to the neutrons GENERATED BY the pile. This was in 1941. After Dec. 7, 1941 support for these experiments went "critical". Fermi moved to the University of Chicago and the "Manhattan Project" infrastructure began to develop. Better purity materials were made available and Fermi constructed his SECOND pile below the U of C football stadium. This pile "went critical" on Dec. 2, 1942 - proving that a sustained nuclear reaction was achievable (i.e., it was ACHIEVED), with k = 1.006. Paul

To: Maxwell who wrote (39094)	10/14/1998 3:16:00 PM
From: Badger	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572366

Umm, nit-picky, I know, and off-topic, but... Fermi was in charge of the Manhattan project, but the mandate to pursue the idea came from the U.S. government as a direct result of a letter to President Roosevelt, drafted by a group of physicists headed by Albert Einstein, during WW II. The letter warned that if the Allies didn't get on the ball, Germany would get there first (split the atom) and the war would take a turn for the worse. Fermi was a brilliant scientist and the perfect man to head up the project, but to credit him with splitting the atom would be inaccurate. The theoretical groundwork done by Curie, Einstein, et al, followed by the combined theoretical and experimental expertise of Feynman, Bethe, and some of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century, all made it possible. With the massive funding and resources of the U.S. government, as well. It's unlikely that a private research project could have even attempted something on the scale of Manhattan. FWIW Badger