The PerkinElmer Story: Part One

before sending up to space. A show could have been made just on this blooper. We agree, we could have done a show really probably about the Hubble space telescope in general, but we're going to cover the Perkin Elmer part of that in the second part of this episode

because it's complex, y'all. Yeah, they really do have their hands in a lot of different projects, partially because, uh, because we're talking about multiple companies and all kinds of mergers and corporate shenanigans to go on over the course

of this company's history. But the more that we started researching that, the more we realized exactly how much they've had their fingers in, how many really important historical events they've had their fingers in right, and and part of that complicated nature comes to us from the the the the fact that two big companies merged together, or at least parts of two big companies merged together to form

the modern day Perkin Elmer. So the very the Perkin Elmer that exist today is not exactly the same company that made the the ill fated mirror for the Hubble space telescope um. And in fact, we have to go pretty far back and look at these two individual companies that remained individual companies for a really long time to get a real handle on what this company is all about. And also the stuff that each company makes really complicated science and technology stuff. So that's why this episode is

doubly complicated. You got the Shenanigans, and you got the technolo oology. We could also, I mean, we could really do stories on any one of these technological innovations that we're going to be talking about. And uh so, you know, let us know if any of them, uh sporks spark your interest. Were I would like it if they would spark the interest. Yeah, I um, it's true. We could take any one of these and make a full episode about it. Uh So, we're giving you the cliffs notes

version of a lot of these. We will be giving you some science one oh one, which was very important for me because it's been a long time since I've taken any chemistry classes physics classes, so I needed the reminder. I'm sure some of our listeners do too. Okay, So before we get into all of this, what what is Perkin Elmer? What did they do? Uh? You know, I

wish there were an easy, simple, like one sentence. I don't know what the elevator pitch for Perkin Elmer is other than to say it's an international, multibillion dollar company and it calls itself a global leader focused on improving human and environmental health. But that that does not give you a full indication of all the stuff they do. And it's pretty heavily geared toward making scientific equipment and

process SATs. So sort of the if you think of the stuff that whenever you see like complicated things happening in laboratories, they have their hands in that. So a lot of it in the health industry in particular, especially more recently. But you know, it's kind of funny because you look back at the origins of all this and you would never imagine that this incredibly complicated company would spring up from from from what it did. Yeah, and so Perkin Elmer was indeed started by two dudes named

Parking and Elmer. But due to the aforementioned of vultron like combination of multiple corporations that we're going to be talking about, we're kicking off by talking about some important people who are neither Perkin nor Elmer, right, but they are just as important to the company as it exists today as anyone else. And so back in nineteen thirty one, Professor Harold doc Edgerton of m i T partnered with two students, Kenneth Germshalsen and Herbert Greyer to study high

speed photography and stroboscopic techniques. So the idea here was that they wanted to, you know, photography was still a fairly young uh art and science at this time, and they wanted to be able to make cameras that could take photos of stuff that's in motion without it being

really blurry. And so they really began to put their minds to this, and they all kind of formed this sort of research partnership, uh not necessarily thinking about making a full company at this point, but that was the origin of their part Meanwhile, in seven another partnership would form, and that was between banker Richard S. Perkin, who was thirty one at the time, and a court reporter by the name of Charles w Elmer, who was sixty five

at the time. And I find their age difference just interesting in the fact that they would go on to do so many things together and what if they bond over They were both really interested in astronomy. UM. The company first helped import and then design optics and procedures with with a primary interest in astronomical equipment UM and and this was due to Okay, so so perkins childhood passion was astronomy. He was putting together his own telescopes by the age of eleven and grinding his own lenses

by the age of thirteen. I don't even want to talk about the things I did at age thirteen. They seemed so incredibly trivial in comparison. Yeah, I think I was playing a lot of Donkey Kong Country at the time. Um. But he he studied chemical engineering for a year at college, then left for Wall Street, hence the banker thing. UM. The two of them actually met when Elmer was delivering

an amateur astronomy lecture at the Brooklyn Institute UM. By the way, the the Custer Institute and Observatory in New York was named for Elmer's wife. They were really serious amateur astronomers and would begin construction of that public observatory that the Custer Observatory UM in ninety eight. So Perkin and Elmer began importing optical instruments from Europe because the US wasn't manufacturing a whole lot of that at the time, But within a year they would begin manufacturing their own

out of New Jersey. And then in nineteen thirty nine, Perkin Elmer incorporates. So there's something else that happened right around nineteen thirty nine. Yeah, little thing you might have heard of World War two um it, but basically broke out around the same time and started creating a huge demand for for field optics, you know, periscopes and range finders, uh, gun sights and cameras and all kinds of stuff like that.

And so Perkin Elmer began to branch out at the same time that group that I talked about earlier, Edgerton and germ Shausen and Greer, and I apologize if I'm totally misspelling or mispronouncing rather their names that that became known as E. G and G, which makes life so much easier. And they also were being, uh, pretty instrumental in the war effort. We'll talk a little bit about that in just a couple of seconds. But nineteen forty one we get into one of the first major products

from Perkin Elmer. It was a spectra photometer. So what the heck does that mean? I mean, you hear spectro photometer, and you start to try and break it down, and there's only so much that an ignorant person such as myself can do before I say, okay, I is it a ghost light meter. No, it is not a specter photometer, spectro photometer. I'm gonna go need to take some different notes. Yeah,

well we'll be right back. Okay, we're back, and now we understand what this is kind of now, So, a spectra photometer measures the amount of light that's either absorbed or transmitted reflected from a sample object. So you pass a beam of light through a sample and then by observing the intensity of the light that reaches a detector on the other side, you can determine exactly how much of a particular material happens to be, say, in in

that sample. Usually you're talking about solution of some sort. So you shine the light through and by observing that, by by measuring the light, you can really determine what sort of stuff is in there and how much of a concentration there is. Because different materials absorb different kinds of light, different wavelengths, different colors of light. Um. So, yeah, so you can figure out what type of material you're dealing with or um or detect particular materials in like

a blood sample for example. Yeah, really really useful technology. And in nineteen six the United States government awards herald Doc Edgerton the Medal of Freedom for his work in

developing technology for night time photography. And you might wonder, well, what's the big deal there, Well, when you're talking about wartime, when you have to go on these missions to try and determine what the enemy uh fortifications are, what they're where they are, and you want to be able to take these these images at night, it became incredibly important.

And so his work with E. G and G became something that was so notable that the government ended up awarding him the Medal of Freedom after World War Two. Now we move on to nineteen and E G and G Incorporates. So Perkin Elmer had already incorporated E G and G Incorporates. And the only real reason I could find that they incorporated was not because they had intended to make a big company, but was because a certain

governmental agency urged them to incorporate. And that would be the Atomic Energy Commission or a e C. Now a e C formed after the end of World War two and had the goal of developing atomic energy for peace time applications. So that raises the question what sort of peaceful applications was E G m G working on. How about creating timed and triggered nuclear bomb. Yeah, that's super peaceful. So they were really looking at a triggering systems. Um

that not the bombs themselves. They didn't build bombs, but they build the systems that either would allow a bomb to trigger or a timed system that would then have a bomb go off. And they weren't necessarily thinking of bombs just for military purposes, as we'll find a little bit later, although I think at this time it was primarily for military purposes. Ah. Yeah, all of those bombs for private sector purposes are I'm I'm not sure where

that's going. I mean, however, in better news late in in in that same year, Edgerton would publish his first article in National Geographic Magazine called Hummingbirds in Action. Yeah, fantastic contrast to making trigger systems for nuclear bombs. And

if you're wondering what the whole hummingbirds and action thing was. Again, he kept working on creating better and better high speed photography, and he was able at this point to take pictures of hummingbirds and get a clear view of their wings while they were in flight instead of just that blur that you would usually see. So again, more examples of him working in that field. Okay, this is a lovely pleasant note. While we are in this terrific mood, let's

take just a quick break for a word from our sponsor. Alright, we're back nineteen nine. We get a the PE model five to a flame photometer from Brokin Elmer. There So, flame photometer, flame photometer, yep, what what's a flame photogram? Oh boy, I had to do so much research in this episode. So this is another instrument that helps you analyze materials. Okay, so you essentially burned them to analyze them. So I hope you don't need it after you analyze it,

because you're going to be out of luck. So what you usually would do is you would spray a solution of metallic salts. You would have these metallic ions in a solution that you you spray into a chamber that has an extremely hot flame. We're talking like degrees celsius hot enough to vaporize the sample YEA, and then the

light given off by the vaporized solution can be analyzed. Uh, and certain elements will give off certain types of light during this vaporization process of exactly, so you'll get different colors that way, and by analyzing those colors, you can determine exactly what those elements are and their concentration within that mixture. So it's usually used in inorganic chemistry applications because again you're looking at metallic ions, you're not you're

not looking at organics like carbon based material. So let's move on to nineteen fifty. That's when E. G and G perfects an ultra high speed photography technique that allows a camera with no moving mechanical parts to take images with an exposure time as short as four millions of a second, So there was a very specific reason they wanted to develop this camera. That was around the same

time that that nuclear blast testing was going on. Yeah, so we're we're talking about areas in the South Pacific, uninhabited areas in the South Pacific where the United States was testing nuclear bombs, and they needed to be able to take images of this. But the problem was that those bombs give off a little bit of light, and by a little bit of light, I mean a whole bunch of light, so much light. So finding a way to have a camera that could take that image with

stand that much light was really challenging. And they found this way of creating a camera where as soon as that that light hit the camera, it would then activate the shutter without any mechanical parts, so it could take that picture that instant and they could get a really good look at what happens the moment after a bomb explodes. Yeah. A couple of years later, Edgerton would be the photographer who who went to the South Pacific to take pictures of the h bomb there. Yeah. He uh, he stood

always away several miles. Yeah, it's not not good to be right at ground zero. For that ninety one, Perkin Elmer offers an infrared spectra photometer. So essentially we're talking about just uh an additional tool here for chemical analysis, and it allows you to use a different, different part of the spectrum of light, the infrared spectrum, in that type of analysis, which gave you a broader range of materials you could use that that particular process on so

important development. I have nothing more to say of at it, but I do have a lot to say about this one, so let's see if I can say it correctly. Nineteen fifty four, Perkin Elmer introduces the TI Celius electrophoresis instrument. Wow, I think I got that on the first try. You did, so I had to sit there. I saw electrophoresis and you know, kind of like spectro photometer. I see this word. I'm thinking, I know what some of these syllables mean.

What the heck is this? We we actually talked a little bit about this in our episode on how gene Therapy works, which was published on December. Come on, Lauren, I don't remember what episodes we do when I'm aware. That's why. That's why I'm reminding for it. For anyone else out there who perhaps has a vaguely faulty memory kind of like me. Yes, but so okay, So what is electrophoresis? This is actually really cool and it did start to sound familiar as I was looking more into it.

I wish my brain would just hold onto information longer. So electrophoresis is a process where chemists use charged electric fields to manipulate molecules within a solution. So you've got a solution in there if you use this this uh, if you apply this um electric field to the fluid, you can actually move molecules around within a solution and

thus start to sort them right. And by by tuning that field, yeah, you can you can select molecules for for their size, or their makeup, or or their charge exactly. So this means that within a solution itself, which may have lots of different types of molecules in it, you can start to sort things through. Again, very important in chemistry. Not something that I would necessarily ever use, or that anyone with the in the right mind would ever let me get near. But it's super cool. No, no electricity

for you ever. No, I'm not even allowed to use a computer anymore. I get all my information by talking to this guy on the street. He's nice, though, breakin Elmer unveils the vapor fractometer. When am I going to land on an instrument that I understand immediately just based upon the name? I? How how many degrees do you have? In scientific I have zero degrees and never Yeah, it's probably never gonna happen. So this is the first commercially

available gas chromatograph chromatograph. So now this case, I knew what a chromatograph was. That one I understood. Um, I've never used one, but I am familiar with what they're supposed to do. That's actually when I had to look up some good times. I'm glad. I'm glad that we flipped back and forth. So in order to understand exactly what a chromatograph is and why it's important, we need to do a little chemistry one oh one, right, all right,

just to just to define some terms. So first we're gonna define the term mixture, and it's pretty much what you would think it is. A mixture is a substance of at least two or more components that are mixed together but do not in any way chemically combine. Right, you can physically separate the components of a mixture. Right, So if you if you thought of like, um, I don't know, iron filings and some non ferres material like sand,

and you mix them together. If you had a magnet, you could pull the iron silings out of that without affecting the sand. There's no chemical common combining going on there. Right, Then you have solution. And a solution is sort of a subset of what a mixture is. So not all mixtures are solutions, but all solutions are mixtures, right, And in this one. In in a solution, you've got one substance that has been dissolved into another. That the solute

is dissolved into the solvent. That's correct, And so it makes it look like it's a single substance because of that that dissolving factor. So saltwater, for example, looks like it's a single substance. It's just it's it's water that happens to be salty. But if you were to boil off the water, the salt would remain behind, once again showing that this is truly a mixture. The salt has not chemically bonded in this case, so you do have to go an extra step there by boiling it. You

can't just physically remove it like you know. You could maybe filter it out the thousand times using very very fine filters, but that's it still is a lot more work than you know your basic macro exture. Sure. Sure, However, compounds are materials in which two or more elements have chemically combined. Right, So salt is an example. Salt water is a mixture, but salt is a compound. Salt is sodium and chloride that has been combined together chemically, and

that changes the chemical composition. So you anyone who's done any chemistry knows sodium, for example, explosive when it comes in contact with water, uh, chlorine and it's and it's our chloride and all of those kind of a lovely materials, not so healthy to be around. But sodium chloride, when you add the two together, totally harmless, table salt delicious, yes,

as moderate amounts people moderate amounts. So chromatography refers to this broad collection of physical methods that are used to separate and analyze complex mixtures, and it gets its name from the practice of using these methods to separate out the various pigments that were found in plants, and each

pigment was different colors. So the process became known as chromatography, or if you were to translate, it would roughly mean to right colors right w R I T E. So we still use that term today, even if we're not really concerned about colors at all. We just want to be able to separate out a mixture. I think in most most cases these days, we're not concerned about colors.

That's usually the case. Yet, So in gas chromatography, the process of separating these components of a mixture out is going to involve first again vaporizing the sample, right, yeah, which makes sense because you want it to be a gas example, happens to be liquid or solid. That's that's

a problem right there. Um. Then you're going to pass the gas through this equipment and the different components in it are going to migrate at different rates based on on the size or some of the chemical uh chemical properties properties exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you have just just imagine you've got this gas, it's got different types of molecules in it by by applying some force to it, depending upon what you know, what method you're using,

because again, chromatography is a collection of processes. Then these molecules of different components move at different speeds. Usually what they're moving through is this absorptive materials. And okay, that's ad absorptive. I did not mispronounce that. That's that's absorptive, not absorptive UM. And I just like saying that word now um and and adsorptive surface is um. I mean basically,

it's something that stuff sticks to. It's a physical process, which differentiates it from absorption, which is either chemical or energetic UM. For for example, water sticks to sand or silica gel, which is essentially really fancy sand. And if you want to watch a whole video about that, I talked about it on brain stuff. So you can just search for silica gel brain stuff on your interweb's brows arab choice and then you can find out all about

this stuff. So you then have these two or more components within a mixture moving at different speeds against this adsorptive material and so they're going and to stick at different points on this absorbative surface, which ultimately means you've separated out those materials. Very important in chemistry and the big benefit of the vapor fractometer. Ha ha, you thought we forgot about that that's the whole reason we had chemistry one on one people. But the vapor fractometer the important.

The reason why it was important was because it didn't require specialists. It didn't require a highly trained chemist to operate it, so that you could separate out these materials within a complex mixture, which meant that you could have lab technicians running this instrument and then you could have your fancy schmancy scientists doing something else somewhere else. It was really kind of a labor saving device in a

lot of ways in the laboratory. Sure, and if you're wondering what exactly this kind of thing is used for, um, it can be. It can it can automatically determine, say like the alcohol level and blood or um the flavors or pollutants or other chemical compounds and stuff like water or food or booze, which are all important to chemically. These are important things. So nineteen fifty six that's when E. G and G participates in programs to develop nuclear propulsion engines.

I'm just saying that to make people a mad nuclear propulsion engines for space vehicles. They also start to develop commercial products for the first time, including flash tubes and high speed measurement instruments. Those flash tubes will come really interesting in a few moments too. In nineteen fifty eight, E G and G supports the a EC Plowshare program. This is where we're talking about the peaceful use of

nuclear explosives. Yeah, so instead of trying to you know, weaponize nuclear bombs, they're talking about using it to do things like dig canals or harbors or look for natural gas. Uh. Yeah. It was around that time that a treaty was signed to ban nuclear weapons testing. Yeah. Yeah, lasted about two years, so yea, yeah, nineteen fifty nine. This was a fun one, an interesting little bit. Edgerton joins of a famous fellow, Jacques Yes, and they use E. G and G underwater

cameras and light sources to do ocean exploration. And I get the feeling that Edgerton was really was, you know, like an adventurous sort and truly brought his expertise in photography to lots of different fields. He sounds, you know, although I hadn't heard the name, I think before we started doing this episode, he sounds a little bit like a science rock star of the of the nineteen sixties era, kind of which that that I had heard of him before. Yeah, yeah,

we might. Maybe one day we'll do a full episode just on his contributions, because they do go outside of just E. G and G. So, in nineteen sixty two, M I. T. Scientists use E. G. And G xenon flash tubes to shine a light on the surface of the Moon, like from Earth. Yeah, like flashlight on the moon, right, So, like you know, normally the light on the Moon is coming from the Sun. Not this time, it's coming from

a xenon flash tube. That is amazing. Nineteen sixty three, Perk and Elmer introduces the atomic absorption spectra of the ptometer. And I know what you're thinking, Okay, what does that mean. Well, don't worry, I looked into it for you. So it's an instrument that atomizes a sample, usually by applying a whole lot of heat to it. Again we like burning

stuff here in science, yep. And then the spectral photometer shines light through that atomized sample, and elemental atoms absorbed light, but only at a particular wavelength specific to that element. So sodium would absorb certain wavelengths and potassium would absorb

other wavelengths. So once you know that once you know which elements absorb which wavelengths, then if you shine a light through this atomized mixture and have a detector on the other side, and you detect for specific wavelengths and you know you know how much should be coming through, and you see how much is actually coming through. That tells you subtract and figure out how much of any given element is in your sample. Exactly, Lauren, you beat

me to it. That's exactly right. So it's one of those things where you know, it's a kind of an ingenious way of figuring out what was in that stuff you just blew up, uh, and in a much more specific atomic level way than any of the previous burning and or spectra of p autometer methods that we have previously described. Right, Okay, so we've got a lot more to talk about both e G and G and Perk and Elmer, including the point where these two companies shake

hands and come buddy buddy with each other. But as you can already tell, this is very complicated. So we're going to take a break so we can get some cupcakes that are sitting outside the door for us and macarons. Yeah, and now we're going to enjoy those immensely. Meanwhile, why don't you guys enjoy talking to us? Send us, send us messages, guys, send us email, send us messages on Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr. We want to hear from you.

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