1953 Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology Certificate

Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology (ORSORT) was the successor to the Clinton Laboratories Training School at Oak Ridge which operated in 1946-1947. ORSORT was authorized and financed by the U.S. government and founded in 1950 by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover and Alvin Weinberg. During its existence, the school was the only educational venue in the U.S. from where a comprehensive twelve-month education and training in either "Reactor Hazards Analysis" or "Reactor Operations" could be obtained, with accompanying certificates.

This is the informal certificate that the students developed and issued to graduates. This copy is from the Rockwell archives and is from 1953.

Text of certificate:

"Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology hereby decays to a lower but more stable state with the emission of [name] who, having moderated trace quantities of nuclear knowledge to infinite lethargy, having associated with cutie-pies and fast daughters in excited states, having discovered Fermi's Age, having accumulated a critical mass of material for reactors heterogeneous and ingenuous, accomplishing these feats in the space of one year (fast effect) has captured the degree of . . .

Doctor of Neutron Husbandry

with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto, i.e., to travel to Mohr's Circle, to belong to the Borel Set, to dial Avogadro's number, to fill a lattice vacancy, to delay a neutron, strip a nucleus, perturb a reactor, escape a resonance, and to underwrite neutron collision insurance, this degree is awarded this twenty-first day of August of the Eleventh Year After Enrico's Chianti

C. E. Larson - Laplacian Operator

Alvin M. Heinberg - Hermitian Operator

F. C. Von der Lage - Joint Operator

Lewis Nelson - Adjoint Operator

Fission License No 1630-82153"

The Clinton Laboratories Training School at Oak Ridge was was open only for a year, in 1946-47. It was affectionately called Clinch College of Nuclear Knowledge (sometimes humorously spelled Klinch Kollege of Knuclear Knowledge). Rickover arrived at Oak Ridge about 6 months before the Clinch College school officially started. Harry Soodak and Edward Campbell gave informal lectures for the Navy attendees including Rickover - this content would later become to be used for the Clich College and subsequently for the 1 year ORSRT.

This file is courtesy of the Theodore Rockwell Papers (MSS Rockwell), Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives Research Center, Corvallis, Oregon.