Montreal Laboratory, Physics laboratory
The Montreal Laboratory was a nuclear research facility in Montreal, Canada, first housed in a building at McGill University before moving to the campus of the Université de Montréal on the slopes of Mount Royal. The site was equipped with experimental labs and technical infrastructure dedicated to atomic physics research.
The laboratory was founded in 1942 by Canada's National Research Council as a joint project with Britain to study nuclear fission during the war. After the conflict ended, operations moved to Chalk River in Ontario, and the Montreal site closed in 1946.
The name simply refers to the city where the facility was set up, yet Montreal became a meeting point for scientists from Canada, Britain, and other countries during the Second World War. Visitors who walk through the campus of the Université de Montréal, where the lab was eventually housed, can still sense the weight of that international scientific gathering.
The former laboratory site on the Université de Montréal campus is not open to the public as a dedicated visitor attraction, but the campus grounds can be freely walked. It is worth combining a visit with a walk up Mount Royal, which is right next to the area.
ZEEP, which went online here in September 1945, was the first nuclear reactor to operate outside the United States. It ran on heavy water, a technology that would go on to define the Canadian approach to reactor design for decades.
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