In keeping with Women’s History Month, GTTSi would like to honor Dr. Leona Woods Marshall Libby. Working directly with Enrico Fermi they built the world’s first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile 1 (CP-1). She was the only woman present at its crucial first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction on December 2, 1942, in a squash court under the stands of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.
After completing her PhD in Chemistry in 1942, Dr. Leona Woods (not yet married) was recruited by Enrico Fermi to join the Manhattan Project team. In this endeavor she worked directly with Fermi and she created the boron trifluoride counter, which detected neutron activity and was used in the CP-1 experiment to determine if nuclear fission could be created through graphite and enriched uranium oxides and metal. Through this experiment, she and Fermi were able to complete the first step in controlling nuclear activity by creating a self-sustaining chain reaction. This was a crucial step in proving it was possible to create an atomic bomb. This event kicked off the “Atomic Age” – the rise of both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons
After the war, Dr. Marshall Libby—as she became known after marrying a second time—served as a faculty member and held research positions at multiple universities and laboratories. In 1973, following her second husband Willard F. Libby, to the University of California at Los Angeles, where he was a professor of chemistry, she developed interests in environmental science and engineering and published prolifically, garnering multiple honors. Her final paper was published in 1984 – “Systematics of quasi-stellar-object spectra“. In 1986, during an interview about the Manhattan Project, she was asked if she believed dropping the second nuclear bomb on Japan had been necessary? She replied, “I have no regrets. In wartime, it was a desperate time. I think we did right and we couldn’t have done differently.” Later that same year, November 1986, she died at the age of 67.
Pictured below, the empty Chianti Bertolli wine bottle – its raffia (wicker basket) bears the signatures of the scientists and staff present at the historic event when the world’s first, man-made, controlled nuclear chain reaction was achieved on the first atomic reactor, Chicago Pile -1 (CP-1).
Photo: Dr. Leona Woods Marshall Libby pictured with her 1st husband John Marshall at the International Conference on High Energy Physics, 1952
Photo Credit: Rincon Education
Photo: Dr. Leona Woods; Photo Credit: National Park Service
Photo Credit: Flickr
