Nuclear Energy is on Ellis Avenue, between the Max Palevsky West dormitory and the Mansueto Library in the Hyde Park community area of Chicago.

[4] In 1973, Henry Moore was quoted in Art Journal as saying: It's a rather strange thing really but I'd already done the idea for this sculpture before Professor McNeill and his colleagues from the University of Chicago came to see me on Sunday morning to tell me about the whole proposition.

But this experiment was carried on in secret and it meant that by being successful Man was able to control this huge force for peaceful purposes as well as destructive ones.

[5] The sculpture was erected for and dedicated at the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the initiation of the first self-sustaining controlled nuclear reaction by Enrico Fermi on December 2, 1942.

Moore cited a number of inspirations for the sculpture, from earlier works with similar forms[14] to natural objects like stones.

[16] Interviews with Moore highlight the dual nature of the top and bottom portions of the sculpture, meant to represent the creative and destructive power possible with nuclear energy.

[14] A miniature preliminary cast of the sculpture, entitled Atom Piece, was presented to critics and University of Chicago faculty early.

[17] William H. McNeill, the professor who spearheaded the effort to procure the sculpture, consented to purchase the work entitled Atom Piece.

[20] The work consists of eight masks, each simultaneously representing a figure in the story of the Moore sculpture and in the sixteenth-century Noh play Eboshi-ori.