U of Chicago opens Enrico Fermi time capsule

The University of Chicago has unveiled items left in a time capsule more than 60 years ago by Enrico Fermi, one of the fathers of the atomic bomb.

The Chicago Tribune reports the items were revealed Thursday afternoon at the Research Institute Building. That's where Fermi led the team that built the first nuclear reactor. Fermi and University of Chicago president Robert Maynard Hutchins left the time capsule in 1949.

School officials opened the box four weeks ago to see what was inside. There was a phone book, road map, timetables, scientific booklets and an architect's rendering of the Research Institute Building.

The building is to be demolished in August. It will be replaced by a new Eckhardt Research Center.

Fermi won a Nobel prize for nuclear research in 1938.