Reference News Network July 2 report: The Spanish magazine "Investigación y Ciencia" website published an article titled "Leona Woods and the Origins of Nuclear Power" by Eugenio M. Fernández Aguilars on June 22. The full text is as follows:

In the grand narrative of science, some names are repeatedly mentioned until they become tiresome. However, in the less visible gears of history, there are people who were crucial but rarely became the main characters. Leona Woods was one of them. This young physicist, only 23 years old at the time, was a member of the team that started the first nuclear reactor in history. On that day in 1942, when humanity took an irreversible step into the atomic age, she was the only woman in the room. She asked Enrico Fermi, "When should we start to be afraid?"

Throughout her life, from the hidden laboratory under the stadium to her pioneering role in climate change research, Woods was deeply involved in the most complex aspects of nuclear science and politics, while honestly and insightfully revealing what it meant to be a woman, scientist, and mother in the arms race.

Woods was born on August 9, 1919, in Illinois. She graduated from university at the age of 18 and completed her doctorate at 23. She stood out not only for her intelligence but also for her determination. Even though one of her future mentors, Nobel laureate James Franck, warned her, "As a woman, if you pursue physics, you will starve," she persisted and chose to work with Robert Mulliken, who later also won the Nobel Prize.

During her studies, Woods demonstrated her ability in vacuum technology and operation of particle detectors, two critical skills that later proved essential in the Manhattan Project. Her doctoral thesis focused on the band gap of silicon oxide, at a time when World War II had already broken out. While many of her classmates joined the war, she was recruited to work with Enrico Fermi, the designer of the first nuclear reactor.

On December 2, 1942, in the basement of Stagg Field, Fermi and his team accomplished an incredible feat: the first self-sustaining chain nuclear reaction. In that dimly lit place, among graphite blocks and simple control devices, Woods was the only woman present. Her role was crucial. She was responsible for calibrating neutron detectors and manufacturing them using glassblowing techniques, a skill uncommon among physicists at the time.

Woods was also crucial in interpreting data that confirmed the reactor was operating. With a touch of sarcasm and some nervousness, she asked, "When should we start to be afraid?"

A key event in Woods' career occurred in Hanford, Washington, where the first industrial nuclear reactors were producing plutonium for atomic bombs. When the reactors mysteriously shut down a few hours after startup, Woods and her husband John Marshall were on site. While many assumed it might be a water leak, Woods proposed another hypothesis: the presence of a radioactive poison.

Together with her colleagues, she analyzed the data and concluded that the culprit was xenon-135, a byproduct that absorbs neutrons and stops the reaction. Thanks to a design that included extra fuel tubes, they were able to operate the reactor at higher power and solve the problem. This discovery was crucial for stabilizing plutonium production, which was a decisive step in the development of the atomic bomb ultimately dropped on Japan.

Years later, when reflecting on her experience in developing nuclear weapons, Woods did not express regret. As she put it, "If the Germans had succeeded before us, I don't know what the world would have looked like... It was a very frightening period." Regarding the bombing of the atomic bomb, she added that the number of deaths would have been higher with a conventional invasion. She was not justifying the act of terror, but rather understanding it as part of the brutal logic of war.

After leaving the field of nuclear physics, Woods—now known as Leona Marshall Libby after her second marriage to Nobel laureate Willard Libby—turned to ecology and environmental research. In the 1970s, she developed a method to study climate change through tree rings, measuring the different isotopic ratios of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. This technique made it possible to reconstruct climate patterns from centuries without meteorological records.

This shift was significant, as Woods moved from researching weapons of mass destruction to studying how trees tell stories about droughts, rainfall, and temperatures. Her work was pioneering in dendroclimatology, now a fundamental discipline in climate science.

In addition to climate research, Woods was a strong advocate for food irradiation technology, which kills bacteria without chemicals. She claimed the regulations were too strict and proposed alternatives, such as using irradiation instead of pesticides. Woods also authored more than 200 scientific papers, many of which extended beyond the traditional boundaries of physics.

In her later years, she worked at the RAND Corporation, taught at universities such as the University of California, Los Angeles, and published her autobiography, "The People of Uranium." In the book, she not only recounted technical facts but also told stories of the human environment, doubts, fears, and the daily tension. She witnessed and participated in an era when science changed the course of history. Woods passed away on November 10, 1986, from a stroke. (Translated by Han Chao)

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7522378581188657698/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author. Please express your opinion by clicking on the [Up/Down] buttons below.