00:00:00 Technology has influenced the way we think and look at our world. These are times of rapid change, where energies are directed at exploring the future, understanding the Earth, and the universe.

00:00:21 Every day, scientific innovations are being applied to meet the changing needs of a modern society. We have developed technologies to analyze the food that you eat, the air that you breathe, the water that you drink. Our technologies reach into your world of computers and communications. We have helped you find your way home, and we have pointed your way to the stars.

00:00:49 These are the technologies of Perkin-Elmer.

00:00:55 The management of the environment, as well as our natural resources, is essential if we are to preserve the quality of our life. The demands for energy in a modern society have produced unexpected fallout that threatens to unbalance the chemistry of our lakes, our streams, and our forests.

00:01:16 Perkin-Elmer analytical instruments are being employed by electric utilities and other industries to help control the potential for air pollution and acid rain. Effective water management is of increasing national concern. This need has inspired a growing number of water monitoring and testing programs at many laboratories across the United States.

00:01:41 Growing demands for analysis have presented analytical laboratories with increased sample loads. To cope with this challenge, Perkin-Elmer engineers and scientists have pioneered computer-aided chemistry and laboratory information management techniques. The benefits of advanced laboratory robotics aid sample preparation. Precision automated instrumentation analyzes for a variety of analytical techniques.

00:02:10 Specially prepared computer software routines manipulate data and automatically print out reports for interpretation by chemists. This is today's Total Lab.

00:02:25 Today, Perkin-Elmer has over 150 laboratory information management systems installed and working around the world. Our LIMS systems are computer-based management systems that speed information to decision makers faster and more accurately. With our large library of application software, chemists have greater control of the large amounts of data being generated by modern analytical instruments. The LIMS concept is a key element in the laboratory of today and of the future.

00:02:53 Health is in, and we have become a generation preoccupied with fitness and with what we eat. Foods at every stage of preparation are inspected by analytical instruments from Perkin-Elmer to help ensure the nutritional value of your diet. Modern medicines have helped society enjoy a vigor unparalleled in human history. However, drug abuse is a social problem of mounting world concern.

00:03:23 This crisis has influenced our traditional concepts of prevention and control. The United States Department of Defense has taken initial steps to establish a worldwide network of analytical testing laboratories to help protect the health of our military personnel. Perkin-Elmer laboratory information management systems were chosen for this critical assignment.

00:03:47 The forest primeval. Nature's laboratory, where the drama of biological evolution is played out, now as it was in antiquity. But today, biology is coming out of the jungle. Aided by the automation of biomolecular techniques and the computerization of data analysis, the new science of biotechnology is expanding rapidly.

00:04:18 Bringing advanced techniques to this emerging field, Perkin-Elmer researchers are employing robotics to automate routine bioassays.

00:04:27 Rapid analysis and high-performance separations of monoclonal antibodies and genetically engineered proteins are critical needs of today's bioresearcher. This biocompatible liquid chromatography system achieves high yields with recovery of biological activity.

00:04:47 What will the shapes of the future be? These are the shapes of today. Materials and surface sciences are new technologies with new missions.

00:05:05 When deployed within the Hubble Space Telescope, this mirror will collect a broad spectrum of energy for study by astronomers. It represents one of technology's most elegant achievements of the 20th century. Designed and manufactured by Perkin-Elmer.

00:05:23 Eight feet wide, this is the finest mirror of its size ever made. Its reflective and protective coatings are just four millionths of an inch thick. So smooth is its surface that if the continental United States were polished to the same perfection, the tallest mountain peaks from the Atlantic to the Pacific would be reduced to less than two inches in height.

00:05:49 Surface science analysis and thin film technology are critical for the manufacture of integrated circuits and for the production of a variety of exotic surfaces, such as those found on video disks and newer memory devices.

00:06:05 Today, the surface characteristics of many materials can be modified to suit technical needs. From ultra-thin surfaces only a few atoms deep to thicker coatings that completely restore the physical dimensions of large industrial parts that have been altered by wear.

00:06:24 With the added benefits of robotics now being applied to thermal and plasma spray technology, industry has found a safer and more economical approach to consistently meet tighter manufacturing dimensions.

00:06:38 We are in a two billion dollar market that is growing rapidly. Many of the new and innovative materials that are improving our lives are the direct result of successful developments in the materials and surface sciences.

00:06:54 In aircraft jet engines, for example, thermal spray coatings are essential for providing safe, reliable, and efficient operation. Microelectronics, telecommunications, computers, automobiles, these are just a few of the many other applications of these new materials and surface technologies.

00:07:15 Like early speech, the origins of astronomy are mysteries lost in time. But it was the first science inspired by man's need to inquire, to learn, to communicate.

00:07:30 Perkin Elmer has been close to astronomy since the company's beginning in 1937 as the first domestic source of precision optics. Founded by two amateur astronomers, Richard S. Perkin and Charles W. Elmer, we have always followed the stars.

00:07:49 In all of human history, there have been only two periods in which our perception of the universe has been so revolutionized within a single lifetime. The first occurred nearly four centuries ago at the time of Galileo. With the Hubble Space Telescope, the second is now underway.

00:08:10 In 1984, Perkin Elmer's optical telescope assembly, the heart of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, made its cross-country trek from Danbury to California, beginning the most exciting astronomical journey of this or any age.

00:08:26 Perkin Elmer has played a large part in this adventure. In developing the optical telescope assembly, we have moved far beyond the boundaries of existing technologies, exceeding all of NASA's specifications for accuracy, sensitivity, stability, and optical quality.

00:08:45 For me, this has been a long journey, almost a professional lifetime. We first began work on the engineering concepts of a space telescope in the late 60s. It's as if we had been enlisted to build a pyramid, and it probably is a wonder of the modern world. No one knows what discoveries may be waiting, but just to have been a part of, be a part of this program is a life-fulfilling experience for me.

00:09:11 Space Telescope will orbit 300 miles above the Earth, providing an unobstructed view into the far reaches of the cosmos. As the adventure takes full flight, we hope for long-sought-after answers to the mysteries of the stars, evidence of other planetary systems, knowledge of our universe's past and future.

00:09:37 And what of the future? A special optics facility in our Danbury Complex is the gathering place for a variety of scientific and engineering talents. Here, work has already begun on advanced space astronomy missions and large space optical systems destined for the 21st century.

00:09:59 Early work on a future space observatory has successfully demonstrated our capabilities in manufacturing large optical systems to detect X-ray sources in the universe.

00:10:11 John, I'd like to see those wafers when you're through.

00:10:15 Silicon Valley and its technology have altered our lives in many ways. For example, electronics equipment that once required the space in a building the size of a city block can now be packed in a suitcase.

00:10:31 The semiconductor revolution has created a powerful world of miniature electronics. Computers in watches, in calculators, computers in finance, merchandising, aviation, and a million computers in a single suitcase.

00:10:47 The rapid growth of this amazing technology can be traced to a unique and powerful array of perkinoma machines that print integrated circuits on silicon wafers with geometries as fine as 175th the thickness of a human hair, routinely and in quantity.

00:11:07 Microlithography is at the heart of modern communications. It has accelerated the exchange of information and has quickened our lives. Semiconductors have indeed made our world smaller.

00:11:22 We do live in times of rapid change and uncertainty, but these are also times where scientific minds have found freedom of expression, where the best of ideas do become innovation.

00:11:37 We have also found that there are no formulas for technical achievement, nor is there any well-defined roadmap to business prosperity.

00:11:46 However, engineering solutions to technical challenges begin in a climate of mutual respect, trust, and cooperation.

00:11:55 Our scientists need interaction with their technical peers and academic associations where ideas and research are exchanged and allowed to mature over time.

00:12:07 We are often like a ship at sea, where basic strategy calls for charting a course or general direction.

00:12:14 To get there, however, skilled hands must set the sails and begin the voyage.

00:12:20 If there were a magic formula for the pursuit of scientific achievement, the most important element in that equation would be excellent people.

00:12:30 We are a people-intensive enterprise.

00:12:33 Perkin-Elmer is people.