The Metallurgical Laboratory was a scientific laboratory at the University of Chicago that was established in February 1942 to study and use the newly discovered chemical element plutonium. It researched plutonium's chemistry and metallurgy, designed the world's first nuclear reactors to produce it, and developed chemical processes to separate it from other elements. In August 1942 the lab's chemical section was the first to chemically separate a weighable sample of plutonium, and on 2 December 1942, the Met Lab produced the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, in the reactor Chicago Pile-1, which was constructed under the stands of the university's old football stadium, Stagg Field.
Eckhart Hall at the University of Chicago was used for the Metallurgical Project's administrative offices
Arthur H. Compton (left) the head of the Metallurgical Project, with Martin D. Whitaker, the director of Clinton Laboratories
Argonne Laboratory at "Site A"
Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. The stadium was razed in 1957.
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. The university has its main campus in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
Albert A. Michelson, Professor of Physics and first American Nobel laureate, delivers the second Convocation Address in front of Goodspeed and Gates-Blake Halls, with President William Rainey Harper, professors, and trustees in attendance, July 1, 1894.
View from the Midway Plaisance
The campus of the University of Chicago, from the top of Rockefeller Chapel, the Main Quadrangles can be seen on the left (West), the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, West Asia & North Africa and the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics can be seen in the center (North) and the Booth School of Business and Laboratory Schools can be seen on the right (East), as the panoramic is bounded on both sides by the Midway Plaisance (South).
View of university building from the Harper Quadrangle