List of Resources Impact of Scientists on Arthur Holly Compton
Edwin McMillan When Compton was appointed head of the Manhattan Project, he called a meeting in Chicago. For this meeting he would invite Edwin McMillan, the co-discoverer of the first transuranium elements, neptunium and plutonium. In Chicago on Sept. 19, 1942, McMillan met with Oppenheimer, Manley, Enrico Fermi, Lawrence and Compton to plan the new laboratory. Together they decided that equipment would be purchased, leased or borrowed to set up a fast-neutron laboratory in a remote location where they would move the theoretical and experimental studies Oppenheimer and Manley had been overseeing.
Enrico Fermi and Compton During World War II, Chicago University was the prime location of the Manhattan Project, the effort to produce the first atomic bomb, and in 1942 Compton became one of its leaders. He organized research into methods of isolating fissionable plutonium and worked with Italian physicist Enrico Fermi on producing a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge Arthur studied at Princeton, and worked 1919-20 in the UK with nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford at Cambridge.
The Cubical Lattice Concept One of the first things that had to be determined for the A-bomb, was how best to place the uranium in the reactor. Fermi and Szilard suggested placing the uranium in a matrix of the moderating material, thus forming a cubical lattice of uranium. This placement appeared to offer the best opportunity for a neutron to encounter a uranium atom. Of all the materials which possessed the proper moderating qualities, graphite was the only one which could be obtained in sufficient quantity of the desired degree of purity.