Arnold Beckman, inventor of pH meter, dies at 104

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most e-mailed articles

Arnold Beckman, 104, the scientific visionary whose inventions transformed chemistry and made him so wealthy that he became one of the country's major philanthropists, died Tuesday.

The founder of Beckman Instruments and a major benefactor of the California Institute of Technology — whose accomplishments ranged from perfecting measuring devices capable of unlocking the secrets of life to sniffing out the ingredients of smog — died at Scripps Green Hospital in San Diego.

He and his wife, Mabel, had a strong influence on Southern California through their philanthropy and their politics: They gave generously to Republican causes. Mr. Beckman was among a small group who persuaded Ronald Reagan to run for governor.

Their gifts included major contributions to the University of California, Irvine; the Orange County Boy Scouts; the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif.; and, especially, Caltech in Pasadena.

"There are half a dozen buildings on the campus that bear Arnold's and his beloved wife, Mabel's, names," Caltech chemistry professor Peter Dervan said last week.

The source of the family wealth was Mr. Beckman's remarkable inventiveness and entrepreneurship.

Over the years he and Beckman Institute scientists developed instruments to instantly analyze blood, measure brain waves, help molecular biologists unravel the genetic code of DNA and perform advanced chemical tests to detect syphilis and infectious mononucleosis, among many other things.

Mr. Beckman earned 14 patents, including those for the potentiometer, a variable electrical resistor similar to the volume knob on a radio; and the spectrophotometer, which allowed scientists to quickly determine the chemical makeup of a compound by measuring the intensity of various wavelengths in a spectrum of light.

But it was one of his first — U.S. Patent No. 2,058,761 — that earned him a place in the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio: the pH meter, a simple device that measured the sourness in lemons.

The meter for the first time provided chemists with a compact instrument that used an electrical current to measure the chemical properties of something. It was revolutionary both because it employed a new technique — amplification, using vacuum tubes — that increased the sensitivity and accuracy of the measurement and because it was packaged in a self-contained box.

"Now a scientist could purchase a precision instrument and start making quick, simple, reliable measurements," Arnold Thackray and Minor Myers Jr. said in their 2000 biography of Beckman. "The frustrations of assembly, then measurement, then mathematical calculation all vanished. ... The expertise was in the box."

Arnold Orville Beckman was born in 1900 in the tiny town of Cullom, Ill.

After his mother's death when he was 12, the family moved to nearby Normal, where Mr. Beckman attended University High School. There, he persuaded teachers to let him take chemistry instead of Latin. By the time he graduated in 1918, he had completed more than two years of university-level chemistry.

During World War I, Mr. Beckman joined the Marines but got no farther than the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At a Red Cross dinner, he met 17-year-old volunteer Mabel Meinzer, who would become his wife and fellow philanthropist.

Mr. Beckman earned bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Illinois.

He later earned his doctorate at Caltech and joined the staff as an instructor in 1934 when, challenged to create an ink that wouldn't gum up printers, he and some colleagues formed National Inking Appliance in the rear of a Pasadena garage.

A year later, a friend at a California fruit cooperative asked him to design an instrument to measure the acidity of lemon juice, and Mr. Beckman designed the pH meter. The next year his friend came back for a second pH meter and, sensing a business opportunity, Beckman formed National Technical Laboratories — the forerunner of Beckman Instruments — to manufacture them.

In the first year, 440 instruments were sold. Three years later Mr. Beckman resigned from Caltech to run the new business.

Work on the pH meter led to another line, the spectrophotometer, used to analyze substances using light.

Success financed further research. During World War II, Mr. Beckman's firm made radar more accurate. Development of cermets — electrical resistors made from ceramics and metals — led to hybrid microcircuits for missile systems, heart monitors and telephones. Liquid crystal digital displays, developed by Beckman experts for portable test instruments, spread throughout the world in wristwatches.

Mr. Beckman is survived by his daughter, Patricia, and son, Arnold; two grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Los Angeles Times staff writer Jean O. Pasco contributed to this report.