MetLab (Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago). Enrico Fermi gives a series of lectures on the theory behind the pile. When asked what to do if the pile starts an out-of-control chain reaction, he replies, “Just run, like, behind a hill quite far away.” Fermi, in the Manhattan Project, took the (not particularly imaginative) name of Henry Farmer. His bodyguard was John Baudino, with whom he would become friends. Niels Bohr was codenamed Nicholas Baker. They proceeded along parallel tracks. Berkeley, Hanford, and Oak Ridge worked on the hypothesis that the Fermi pile, with slow neutrons, would work. But Oppenheimer led the work with fast neutrons. The new pile in Chicago was assembled under the west stands of Stagg Field, the now-disused football stadium. Goodyear was commissioned to build a giant balloon to contain the pile, to create a vacuum inside (it was eventually built but never actually used).
