Arnold Orville Beckman

Arnold Orville Beckman ( born April 10, 1900 in Cullom, Livingston County, Illinois, † 18 May, 2004 La Jolla, San Diego, California ) was an American chemist, in 1935 the company National Technical Laboratories, from 1950 Beckman Instruments, in 2010 with the name Beckman Coulter, founded. The foundation was based on his invention of the pH meter.

Life

The son of a blacksmith was at the age of nine years, a chemistry book and began to experiment. His father encouraged his interest and let him develop a tool shed to the laboratory. August 1918 he joined the Navy, but was fortunate that the war ended in November. At the YMCA, he met Mabel Meinzer know.

He went to the University of Illinois, where he earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1922, and the following year his master's degree in Physical Chemistry. For his doctorate, he first went to the California Institute of Technology to Roscoe G. Dickinson. He returned after a year to New York to Mabel, where he found a job with Western Electric, where he developed a quality assurance program for the manufacture of electron tubes. Here he also learned circuit design and began to be interested in electronics.

On June 10, 1925, he married Mabel and went with her the following year to California, where he began his studies at Caltech again. He studied the UV photolysis and worked on an instrument for measuring the energy of UV light. In 1928 he received his doctorate and became a professor at Caltech. He also became a consultant to outsiders.

One of his customers was looking for an ink that does not clump. Beckmans solution was butyric acid, but because of its highly unpleasant odor no one wanted to handle, so he decided to do it themselves and founded by two students National Inking Appliance Company. However, the re-inking of bands write was not successful.

Another customer, Sunkist Growers, Inc., had problems with his own production process. Non-recyclable lemons were processed into pectins, or citric acid. Sunkist had this at any time the strength of the acid to know. For invented Beckman 1935 pH meter.

In 1955 he supported the establishment of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory as a subsidiary of Beckman Instruments to support William B. Shockley in his research in semiconductor technology. Because Shockley's mother lived in Palo Alto, he founded the Laboratory near Mountain View. This Silicon Valley was born.