Member of the team which built and experimented with the Chicago Pile-1, nuclear reactor for Manhattan Project

At age 23, Woods was a member of the team which built and experimented with the world's first nuclear reactor (then called a pile), Chicago Pile-1, in a project led by her mentor Enrico Fermi. Woods was instrumental in the construction and then utilization of geiger counters for analysis during experimentation. She was the only woman present when the reactor went critical. She worked with Fermi on the Manhattan Project, and she subsequently helped evaluate the cross section of xenon, which had poisoned the first Hanford production reactor when it began operation. Woods had plenty of work to do with the detectors and thermocouples, and used a small stack of graphite of her own to measure the effects of a radium-beryllium source on manganese foil to obtain a measure of the neutron cross section in order to calibrate the detectors Her skills in glassblowing were useful in constructing the neutron detectors. She was the only woman present when the reactor went critical, asking Fermi "When do we become scared?".

Category:
Physics, nuclear

Completion Status:
yes

Patent Number:
N/A