December 2, 2017 marked the 60th anniversary of MIT’s sub-critical graphite exponential pile (GEP), a device that was instrumental in advancing the field of nuclear physics. This date also marks the 75th anniversary of the day in 1942 when Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi led an experiment that demonstrated that a nuclear chain reaction could be initiated, sustained and controlled. The MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the MIT Nuclear Reactor Laboratory celebrated these events by restoring MIT's pile. The device will be used to provide students with more hands-on experience in reactor physics education, and will allow students and researchers an opportunity to perform a wide variety of experiments.
