Glenn Seaborg's ID Badge and Slide Rule

This identification badge (2 1/2" x 1 3/4") was used by Glenn Seaborg when he visited Clinton Laboratories, now known as Oak Ridge National Laboratory, during WW II. The date of issue (1-6-44) was approximately two months after the Oak Ridge Graphite Reactor achieved its initial criticality and the first gram quantities of plutonium were being isolated from the reactor’s spent fuel. Seaborg, of course, was a co-discoverer of plutonium.  He was in Oak Ridge to attend a two-day conference concerning the bismuth phosphate purification process to be implemented at the much larger plutonium production facilities in Hanford.

The six-inch slide rule (bamboo) was made for the Frederick Post Company by Hemmi of Japan. While it has the model number 1444 stamped on it, the leather case says 1444P. I do not know when Seaborg first used it. Possibly in the 1940s or so.

Donated by Glenn Seaborg. 

Glenn Seaborg (1912-1999) Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1951. Discoverer or co-discoverer of ten elements (plutonium, americium, curium, berkelium, californium, einsteinium, fermium, mendelevium, nobelium and seaborgium), and dozens of radionuclides (e.g., Cs-137, Co-60, I-131). He developed the concept of the actinide series which he positioned underneath the lanthanide series on the periodic table. Seaborg actually held patents on the elements americium and curium. He served as the Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission from 1961to 1971.