"During the construction of this crude appearing but complex pile (the name which has since been applied to all such devices) the standing joke among the scientists working on it was: 'If people could see what we're doing with a million-and-a-half of their dollars, they'd think we are crazy. If they knew why we are doing it, they'd know we are.'" -- from The First Pile (author not indicated on that page), about the 1942 Chicago Pile-1, first artificial nuclear reactor.
[Why specify 'artificial' in that description? Because there was a natural one in Africa once upon a time.]