DU Spectrophotometer

In the mid-17th century, Isaac Newton conducted experiments with a glass prism demonstrating that white light was made up of a spectrum of colors from red to blue. In his famous book Optics of 1704, Newton suggested the deep connection between light and matter, asking, do not all fixed bodies, when heated beyond a certain degree, emit light and shine? And is not this emission performed by the vibrating motions of their parts? It would be nearly three centuries later that Arnold Beckmann gave science a tool to quickly, precisely, and reliably measure this fundamental connection between light and matter. By the mid-19th century, Robert Bunsen and Gustav Kirchhoff established that chemical elements both emit and absorb very particular colors or wavelengths of light, forming a characteristic fingerprint. Ongoing experiments demonstrated that atoms and molecules also have fingerprints at ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, beyond visible light. In 1941, Arnold Beckmann and his colleagues used electronics to create a breakthrough instrument for measuring these fingerprints, the model DU ultraviolet spectrophotometer. It fit on a benchtop, was easy to use, and cost only $700. The DU reached into the ultraviolet where many of the most important materials in biology and medicine have their fingerprints. Moreover, a scientist using the DU could perform, in minutes, work that had previously taken days or even weeks. We must devote a large part of our manpower to research to make sure that our instruments are always kept up to date and that we develop the new instruments which are needed to take care of the ever-increasing requirements of science and technology. World War II proved the power of the DU. Researchers used it to produce everything from synthetic rubber and aviation fuel to penicillin. In 1946, Erwin Chargaff used the DU for the first total biochemical analysis of DNA, leading to the realization that DNA was the molecule responsible for genes and heredity. After the war, the DU became the model for a new breed of electronic chemical instruments that completely reshaped science, catalyzing the electronic revolution in the chemical sciences. In fact, Nobel laureate Bruce Merrifield said it was probably the most important instrument ever developed toward the advancement of bioscience.