INVENTOR

Arnold Orville Beckman

1900 - 2004

Photo of Arnold Orville Beckman

Icon of person Arnold Orville Beckman

Arnold Orville Beckman (April 10, 1900 – May 18, 2004) was an American chemist, inventor, investor, and philanthropist. While a professor at California Institute of Technology, he founded Beckman Instruments based on his 1934 invention of the pH meter, a device for measuring acidity (and alkalinity), later considered to have "revolutionized the study of chemistry and biology". He also developed the DU spectrophotometer, "probably the most important instrument ever developed towards the advancement of bioscience". Beckman funded the Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, the first silicon transistor company in California, thus giving rise to Silicon Valley. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Arnold Orville Beckman is the 189th most popular inventor (up from 400th in 2019), the 3,138th most popular biography from United States (up from 10,236th in 2019) and the 51st most popular American Inventor.

Memorability Metrics

Loading...

Page views of Arnold Orville Beckman by language

Loading...

Among INVENTORS

Among inventors, Arnold Orville Beckman ranks 189 out of 426Before him are Gunther von Hagens, William Murdoch, Johann Nicolaus von Dreyse, Fausto Veranzio, Heinrich Daniel Ruhmkorff, and Johann Jacob Schweppe. After him are Lucien Olivier, Larry Sanger, Sequoyah, Johann Christoph Denner, George de Mestral, and Viktor Schauberger.

Most Popular Inventors in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1900, Arnold Orville Beckman ranks 112Before him are Ernst Neufert, Herbert Bayer, Roman Steinberg, Emanuel Ringelblum, Evald Aav, and Leonardo Conti. After him are Herbert Blumer, Otto Braun, Zhang Wentian, Santos Urdinarán, Carmen Polo, 1st Lady of Meirás, and Srinagarindra. Among people deceased in 2004, Arnold Orville Beckman ranks 93Before him are Shiing-Shen Chern, Juan Carlos Aramburu, Brian Clough, Philip Abelson, Fred Lawrence Whipple, and Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo. After him are Irina Press, Ann Miller, Russ Meyer, Thomas Gold, Miklós Fehér, and John Maynard Smith.

Others Born in 1900

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 2004

Go to all Rankings

In United States

Among people born in United States, Arnold Orville Beckman ranks 3,138 out of 20,380Before him are Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860), Paula Abdul (1962), Elihu Root (1845), Tito Puente (1923), Joseph Stilwell (1883), and Joseph W. Tobin (1952). After him are Coretta Scott King (1927), Shirley Knight (1936), Kamehameha III (1814), Lindsay Wagner (1949), Zack Snyder (1966), and Jeffrey Tambor (1944).

Among INVENTORS In United States

Among inventors born in United States, Arnold Orville Beckman ranks 51Before him are Christopher Latham Sholes (1819), Edwin Howard Armstrong (1890), Elizabeth Holmes (1984), Alfred Vail (1807), Robert Metcalfe (1946), and Harold Eugene Edgerton (1903). After him are Larry Sanger (1968), Sequoyah (1770), Garrett Morgan (1877), J. Presper Eckert (1919), Eunice Newton Foote (1819), and Royal Rife (1888).