Mt Whitney Zone Forums The Chat Room What In The World Happened Here? XXVII

What In The World Happened Here? XXVII:

The famous statue....
My wife knew it immediately...she says you do not need to give any moore clues

Staggering.

I suppose this thread deliberately courts puns.

AlanK has it, Harvey K., I'm not so sure. Do you need a pile of clues?

She must have been there at some point in time.

 

This is the first time I have actually been able to figure out one of these puzzles!

So exactly what happened here?

Was it an experiment?

The place was originally called "Marshall Field" (named after... who else... Marshall Field). Then Amos Alonzo Stagg got to be a big deal so the name was changed. Then the University of Chicago dropped football and no longer needed its stadium for home games. Then people discovered nuclear fission and Enrico Fermi led a team that did a very famous experiment under the stands. It is commonly called the world's first, but it wasn't. Later, a Henry Moore sculpture called "Nuclear Energy" was installed. That's your picture. The first is my picture.

1941-she was not born yet
Here we are with the waves lapping on a holiday weekend cheating with two brains and thinking of drinking an orange squash.

What In The World Happened Here? XXVII:

For extra credit, can you dig this...



This was intended to be a two-part puzzle, but, Alank, thanks for the extra part.

Steve, your second picture needs some guy wires to
hold that thing down, at least for a few nanoseconds

Wow! I didn't know that they buried the damned thing! With fewer hearings than Yucca Mountain, I imagine. Of course it may have been a bad idea.

Considering that they ran the thing with no cooling system or containment, the burial doesn't seem so bad.

From the wiki:

"On December 2, 1942, CP-1 was ready for a demonstration. Before a group of dignitaries, a young scientist named George Weil worked the final control rod while Fermi carefully monitored the neutron activity. The pile reached the critical mass for self-sustaining reaction at 3:25 p.m. Fermi shut it down 28 minutes later."

"After the first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction was achieved, a coded phone call was made by one of the physicists, Arthur Compton, to James Conant, chairman of the National Defense Research Committee. The conversation was in impromptu code:"

"Compton: The Italian navigator has landed in the New World.
Conant: How were the natives?
Compton: Everyone landed safe and happy."



I guess the operator ran up the ladder & worked the control rods manually. Basically, they got lucky.

Steve
I have a hard time figuring out the answers after all the clues are given and the answer fully explained.And then I am not sure when we have moved on to the next puzzle. I start to catch on that we are on a new puzzle when crytic answers and puns begin showing up.

You're right, Rod. We need a new setup. I propose we start a new thread with each new puzzle, using a roman numeral to indicate the sequence. Example: "What In The World Happened Here XII"

Anyone care to run through all 15 pages of this thread and figure out what number the above Henry Moore sculpture at the site of Chicago Pile 1

Others comments?