50, 100 & 150 Years

NATURAL FISSION REACTOR

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1876, Umbrella Supporter: "Here is a view of a new parasol and umbrella supporter invented by Eliza M. Arnold of Houston, Texas. The contraption is fitted to its wearer with rods and elastic straps."

1976 In an open-pit uranium mine in the southeastern part of the Gabon Republic, near the Equator on the coast of West Africa, are the dormant remains of a natural fission reactor. Within a rich vein of uranium ore the natural reactor once ‘went critical,’ consumed a portion of its fuel and then shut down, all in Precambrian times.

“The history of the natural reactor is an extraordinary sequence of seemingly improbable events. First, uranium from an entire watershed accumulated in concentrated local deposits, including one at a place now called Oklo. Then the conditions necessary to sustain the fission chain reaction were established. After the reactor had shut down, the evidence of its activity was preserved virtually undisturbed through the succeeding ages of geological activity. Finally, the discovery of the reactor involved an investigative tour de force worthy of the best sleuths in detective fiction.”

GEOMETRY OF SOAP BUBBLES