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): Andrzej Badeński • Bella Akhmadulina • Bob Bell (motorsport) • Charlie Hunnam • Enrico Ciccone • Eric Greitens • Ian Harvey • Jeff Gray (baseball, born 1963) • John M. Ford • John Madden • Olivia Borlée • Pavlos Fyssas • Rachel Corrie • Ricky Leutele • Warren DeMartini

Born in the same month (April 1900): August Koern • Gladwyn Jebb • Herbert Bayer • Iracema de Alencar • Jim Bottomley • Marie Byles • Rhea Silberta • Roman Steinberg