Remember forefathers of science
10/01/2001
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Here we are, just a couple of months from the 100th anniversary of the first time Guglielmo Marconi's wireless radio signals were transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean, and that day, December 12th, could possibly go by without many ever knowing.
As the Italian engineer's wireless continues to silently impact the telecommunications industry, the discoveries and breakthroughs of yesteryear will always be the catalyst that allows future mysteries to be unlocked.
Take for instance the laser, invented by Einstein in 1917, and the Raman Effect, discovered by Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman in 1928, which will make a significant impression on the contamination control industry for years to come.
The laser continues to be the base of emerging technologies. Even as this column is being penned, news is breaking about a new laser that detects such deadly pathogens as E. coli and salmonella in animal carcasses, another advance in the ongoing battle of food safety. [Look for the story in the November issue of CleanRooms.]
But the Raman Effect is a bit more intriguing, for it remained in the annals of science until the 1980s when it was revisited for its unique ability to characterize substances with scattered light. But revival was temporarily abandoned until the late 1990s to fix signal loss in optical fiber.
And the Raman Effect lives on, for it is the very soul of a revolutionary device, the ParticleExplorer, that could significantly minimize hosts of airborne molecular contamination (AMC) problems cleanroom end-users deal with regularly.
Developed by Berlin-based Advanced Particle Systems GmbH (APSys), it not only detects and counts, but it automatically identifies particulates, which means the days of laborious particle classification may be over.
Sure, if it had not been for the laser, the ParticleExplorer may have never come to pass, but there is more to science than Einstein — and the Raman Effect is proof of that. Raman's refraction of light and application energy is changing the face of contamination control 73 years later.
Imagine the possibilities and future innovations that could derive from shelved and maybe even forgotten discoveries of times past. Perhaps the only way to get ahead is to take a look back. Think of it as you picking up where someone else left off. It just might be your perfect "square one."
Mark A. DeSorbo
Associate Editor