Science Fare, French Class, Natural History
At Beckman Heritage Center in Fullerton, you can follow half a century of technological progress, from pH-meters to the gas chromatograph that went to Mars, to systems monitoring ozone back on Earth. But you don’t need a spectrophotometer to know what color glasses you’re looking through at La Vie en Rose.
11 a.m. to noon: Beckman Heritage Center began as an archive for Beckman Instruments; it’s next door to the company’s Fullerton plant.
To the more scientifically challenged among us, some inventions in the collection might resemble coffee-makers and microwaves, but all are far more. Arnold Beckman is now 94. He developed his first instrument, the pH-meter, in 1935 for a citrus-growing friend; today it’s also used for swimming pools. Beckman developed the glucose analyzer for one of his company’s directors, a hiker and a diabetic; it measured blood sugar levels, and the prototype could almost fit in a backpack. His BUN analyzer sounds fun, but it actually measures blood uric nitrogen to reveal if you’re pregnant or have heart disease. His ultracentrifuge helped isolate the polio virus. The radioactivity dosimeter measured radioactive exposure and proved quite popular from about 1950 to 1960.
But even Beckman had his Edsels.
“At a time when people were playing around with something in electronics called computers, we made a computer too, only we made it out of air,” said docent Frank Waska, a company retiree who described himself as an archive angel. “It’s a pneumatic computer, a computer with no electronics. It made a sound like whish-shhh-shooh-hish , and of course it drove people crazy.”
By contrast, the spectrophotometer (developed around 1940) filters light through a prism and records the molecular fingerprint of any sample, and its technological descendants are in the news today.
“You heard about the Simpson case,” Waska said. “They found a spot of blood. No instrument can measure one strand of blood, but if you gave me even a nanogram of blood--that’s a decimal point followed by nine zeros, and basically you just hope it’s there--I could put it in the DNA Synthesizer and make a gallon of it. It duplicates the strand, makes copies, so we have enough to measure. That’s why (prosecutor) Marcia Clark was saying it’s going to be a month before she gets a test. First they’ve got to copy it, then they can compare it to other samples.”
Four Beckman instruments can be seen on TV’s “Mantis,” and his Biomek will be featured alongside Dustin Hoffman in a new movie called “Outbreak.”
Noon to 1:15 p.m.: La Vie en Rose loosely translates to “life is rosy,” and life is certainly that at the upscale, Normandy-style restaurant. The chair coverings are like floral tapestries, and the Equal holders have floral designs. With the fireplace going and the holiday lights up, now’s the perfect time for a visit.
I had veal scaloppine Normande with apple brandy sauce ($14.75); less expensive lunch possibilities include a salade Nicoise for $11.50 and angel hair pasta with tomato, basil, garlic and black olives for $8.25. I ordered a glass of rose from Chateau de St. Martin ($5.25), innocuous and therefore perfect for unconscionable quaffing; on a more festive occasion, I’d have also ordered dessert, perhaps the souffle Grand Marnier ($6).
1:15 to 2: It’s startling to think that sandwiched between State College Boulevard and the Orange (57) Freeway you can go snowy egret and white heron watching, but I saw a half-dozen of the extraordinarily beautiful birds during a 2.2-mile walk along Craig Regional Park’s nature trail. (If you lunch at La Vie en Rose, you might want to take along a change of shoes.)
According to senior ranger Linda Huffnagle, there was a devastating flood in 1938, and the dam at one end of the park was built soon after. Inside the office, an exhibit shows in about 100 seconds what happens during a 100-year flood. (There go the tractors--will the homes go under too? You’ll find out.) Craig Park is about the loveliest flood control project you can imagine. The trees bespeak a gentle languor, and the birds could have flown out of a Japanese watercolor.
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3- HOUR TOUR
1. Beckman Heritage Center
241 E. Imperial Highway, Suite 370
Fullerton
(714) 773-6924
Open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. by appointment.
2. La Vie en Rose
240 S. State College Blvd.
Brea
(714) 529-8333
Open Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 to 9:30 p.m.; Saturday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.
3. Ted Craig Regional Park
3300 N. State College Blvd.
Fullerton
(714) 990-0271
Park open daily, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.; office open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Parking / Buses
Parking: There is ample parking in lots at each location and throughout Craig Regional Park; $2 per vehicle entry at the park.
Buses: OCTA bus 41 runs along Harbor Boulevard as far north as Imperial Highway. OCTA buses 49 and 49A run along State College Boulevard as far north as Imperial Highway. MTA bus 120 runs east and west along Imperial Highway during peak hours only.
