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In 1909, nine-year-old Arnold Beckman was scrounging around his parent's attic and discovered an old chemistry textbook, complete with details on performing experiments. In no time, he was performing the experiments it described. Seeing his son's enthusiasm, his blacksmith father encouraged this experimentation and suggested their tool shed in Cullom, Ill., be converted into a laboratory.
So began a lifelong interest in chemistry that initially led to the pH meter and ultimately gave us numerous devices to revolutionize the study and understanding of human biology, made measuring easier and more accurate, and spurred the creation of Silicon Valley. On top of that, Beckman's successes enabled him to donate more than $525 million to advance scientific research in the United States.
Beckman was a true Horatio Alger story, said Ambassador George L. Argyros, chairman of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. "He came from very humble beginnings and became an unpretentious maker of real-life miracles," said Argyros.
"Because of Beckman's electronic revolution, a student today can do in a day what a master chemist took years to accomplish in the 1930s," said Jerry Gallwas, retired director at Beckman Coulter and a member of the board of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation.
"He replaced an entire lab bench of electrochemical apparatus requiring an experienced scientist to operate with a small integrated package of electronics and sensors in a handheld walnut box with a handle that could be operated by a nontechnical person anywhere," Gallwas said.
"The world of science in the mid 1930s was without electronic amplification. Bioassays were a common practice. To determine the vitamin A content of cod liver oil, two dozen rats were fed the oil for four weeks and the bone growth in their tails measured. pH measurements were just becoming of interest in biology, and chemistry required an entire lab bench of apparatus and an experienced chemist," Gallwas said.
"He reduced the month-long analysis of rat-tail bone growth to a one-minute measurement using only one...