Arnold Beckman

Arnold Orville Beckman 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, 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. After retirement, he and his wife Mabel (1900–1989) were numbered among the top philanthropists in the United States.

10 April 1900

Born on the same birth day (10 April): Andile Jali • Asriel Günzig • Barkhad Abdi • Doris Leuthard • Jagjit Singh Lyallpuri • Jeff Gray (baseball, born 1963) • Lew Wallace • Matthew C. Perry • Max von Sydow • Michael Pitt • Nizam al-Mulk • Orlando Jones • Roberto Carlos

Born in the same month (April 1900): August Koern • Bertha Isaacs • Elizabeth Goudge • Erni Krusten • Eva Aschoff • Hack Wilson • Iracema de Alencar • Jim Bottomley • Pierre Molinier • Polly Adler • Rhea Silberta • Roland Michener • Sorcha Boru • Spencer Tracy • Wolfgang Pauli