WEBVTT - The Philips Story: Part One 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:13.119 With technology with tex Stuff from Stuff. Hey there, and 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:17.560 welcome to tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and today I'm 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.040 going to do in part one of an episode about 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:25.120 a company called Phillips or Royal Phillips has actually had 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:29.320 several names over its storied history, and I am going 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:32.920 to talk a little bit about what the company has done, 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.560 where it's from. And this is from a listeners suggestion. 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.639 Roger actually asked this. Roger wrote, I'm an avid Tech 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:44.640 Stuff podcast listener from the UK, especially enjoying the company histories. 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:46.760 I have two companies that I think would be quite 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:50.479 interesting to cover. The first is Royal Phillips. Phillips has 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:53.239 been an innovator since the eighteen hundreds, with everything from 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.280 light bulbs through to high tech medical scanning equipment, with 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.880 a few consumer items such as compact sets, video recorders, 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:04.280 laser disc and CD DVD technology thrown in for good measure. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.160 It would be great to get the history, but I 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:10.320 really wanted to look at Phillips and talk about the 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.000 history of this company. It is interesting because I think 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.360 a lot of people when they think of electronics, they 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:22.320 tend to think of either American companies like General Electric 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:27.560 or Westinghouse, or they think about Japanese companies like Sony 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:31.440 and others are along those lines, but they tend to 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:36.400 forget that there were European companies that were instrumental in 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:42.000 the development of electronics, and in fact, Phillips is one 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.080 of those companies. So I thought I would tackle the 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.760 company history of Royal Phillips, better known as just Phillips 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.240 here in the USA. Although we'll get into how Phillips 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.680 is changing even as I speak, that will probably be 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.600 in part two. So Part one we're gonna focus on 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:04.320 the founding of the company and go through up to 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.680 about the beginning of World War Two, or at least 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:12.360 the Netherlands involvement in World War Two. Because the Phillips 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.720 is a company that originates from the Netherlands, the company 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.000 actually takes its name from a family. The patriarch of 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:25.760 that family was Benjamin Frederick David Phillips, who went by Frederick. 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.560 I'm gonna call him Freddie Baby, So Freddie Baby was 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:34.040 born in the Netherlands on December one, eighteen thirty. He 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.919 was the fourth son of a family that made its 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:42.080 money in the tobacco trade. His father, Lyon Phillips, was 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:48.080 very successful tobacco merchant. Um probably merchant is being too 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:52.919 narrowly defined. Uh. He was also a cousin to another 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:58.040 notable person in history, Carl Marx, who was the author 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:03.600 of the Communist Manifesto, and in fact, Marx would often 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.960 call upon his relatives, the Phillips whenever he was in 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:11.480 need of money. So while Marx was, you know, a 0:03:11.520 --> 0:03:16.560 communist and believed very much in the distribution of wealth 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:22.320 across the workers, he was not above asking his wealthy 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:27.200 merchant class uh distant family for for cash when he 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.840 needed it. Frederick Phillips became a banker and he was 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.840 incredibly successful. He built up a really healthy fortune, and 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.480 he married a woman by the name of Mary Hayliger's. 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:42.360 By the way, there are a lot of Dutch names 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.960 in this and the next podcast that I will be butchering, 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:52.840 largely because Dutch is similar to German, which I know 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:57.040 a little bit of, but different enough that my instincts 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:00.720 on how to pronounce things are often going to be wrong. 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:03.760 So my apologies to all of you Dutch speakers out 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.400 there and really everyone else too, as I butcher these names. 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:11.640 But I'm gonna do my best anyway. Frederick Phillips and 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:15.400 his wife had ten children, not all of them survived 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:19.479 to adulthood, and one of those children was a son 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:24.599 by the name of Gerard Leonardo Frederick Phillips, best known 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:29.120 just as Gerard Phillips. Now, when Frederick was in his sixties, 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.960 he became inspired by his son, Gerard, who was interested 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:37.840 in making carbon filaments for lightbulbs. This would be around 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:43.120 eighteen one, and that was around when electricity was kind 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.480 of on the verge of replacing gas lamps for lighting. 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.920 But as we've talked about in tech stuff on previous occasions, 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.440 it was really tricky to build an electric light bulb 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.400 that could burn brightly enough and last long enough to 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.200 be a practical replacement for gas lamp. A lot of 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:06.800 those early filaments would burn out very rapidly, and in fact, 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:08.920 it was a lot of different innovators who were working 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:11.520 in this space to try and find a way to 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.560 make those filaments last long enough for an electric light 0:05:14.600 --> 0:05:18.919 bulb to really be practical. In fact, I would argue 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:23.480 that Edison's major contribution was the development of a filament 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:28.159 that was longer lasting than most of the predecessors. Uh 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.960 he didn't invent the light bulb. He just improved upon it. Well. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.120 Gerard was interested in this as well and was working 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:37.000 very hard on trying to come up with a carbon 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:41.800 filament that could be of practical use. And he went 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:45.200 to his father and said, maybe we could create a 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:50.159 company specifically for this purpose, and Frederick Phillips agreed to 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.120 back his son Gerard and they formed the Phillips and Company. 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:58.840 Uh they actually purchased a factory in the town of 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:04.839 Eindhoven to make lightbulbs. Now, at that time, Eindhoven was 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.040 sort of a modest industrial town. Today it's actually known 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.240 as a center of innovation and high tech scholarship, and 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:17.359 that's largely due to the influence of the Phillips company. 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:21.599 But it didn't take off immediately. In fact, at first 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:26.320 the company really struggled. So Gerard was a mechanical engineer 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:28.960 and was really good at that. He was he was 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:33.440 very innovative, very clever. He graduated from delf University in 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.200 eighteen eighty three with a degree in mechanical engineering. And 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.000 he had also worked for a company called a e 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:44.640 G which, along with another company called Siemens and Hausk, 0:06:45.480 --> 0:06:50.760 was a dominant player in the electric lighting industry in Europe. Now, 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:56.080 according to historical accounts, the lamps that Gerard was producing 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.719 from Phillips and Company were of excellent quality. They were 0:06:59.720 --> 0:07:05.359 a amazingly long lasting lamps compared to the competitors, and 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.920 they're very pretty, very beautiful design. The factory itself had 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.880 twenty eight people working there and they were earning good 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:18.800 wages comparatively speaking, So everything was going well on that end, 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.960 But the business itself was not doing so well. The 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:27.160 sales weren't reflecting the quality, and by nineteen by eighteen 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.040 ninety four, rather the business was already in trouble and 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.840 in fact teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. So it 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:39.320 was founded in eighteen by eighteen ninety four, it's already shaky. 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:43.040 And the main problem was that Gerard Phillips, while he 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:48.160 was an accomplished mechanical engineer, had very little business acumen. 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:53.120 He could produce amazing work, but he had trouble managing 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.880 the business side of things, and so in eighteen ninety 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:02.840 four his younger brother, Anton Ellops joined the company. Now, 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.160 Anton had a background in business and also was a 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:10.320 much more outgoing personality than his brother was. Gerard was 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:14.200 kind of a solitary worker. He preferred to do research 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:17.880 in the lab and have a quiet environment and avoid conversation, 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.400 which he often thought of as being unnecessary and a 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:25.440 distraction from work. Meanwhile, Anton was much more outgoing. He 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:30.240 enjoyed socializing and networking and was sort of a born salesman. 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.120 So together the two brothers were able to turn the 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.400 company around. Gerard was still the head of the company, 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:40.720 but Anton became kind of the director of sales, and 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:46.679 soon orders were pouring in from all over Europe and beyond. 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:51.040 One of the first big clients of the Phillips and 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:58.680 company uh business was the Star of Russia. So the 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:04.040 Russian tsar at really purchased Phillips lamps to light up 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.400 the Winter Palace to a pretty big deal, especially when 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:15.000 you consider that Karl Marx was a relative. Very interesting experience, 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:20.000 and there are in fact entire books written about Karl 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.080 Marx and the Phillips family and how that relationship was 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:30.160 complicated and how the different philosophies were at play. While 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:35.600 the Phillips family was still sympathetic at least two Marx's 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.440 plight enough so that they were giving him money when 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:42.120 he needed it. Very interesting stuff but kind of beyond 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.839 the scope of tech stuff. I'll leave that to stuff 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.200 you missed in history class. Maybe they can do an 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:53.560 episode about Karl Marx and his relationship with the Phillips family. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.200 At any rate, back to Phillips UH. While Anton was 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:02.040 becoming something of a sales legend in Europe, his brother 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:06.480 Gerard headed up research and development back in Eindhoven. So 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.960 Gerard was constantly improving designs to build better lamps, and 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.320 then Anton would go and sell those designs to customers. 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:19.400 And because of Gerard's success, UH, and because of his 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:24.360 his reputation as a brilliant designer, Anton was actually able 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.360 to promise his clients that the company was always working 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:31.960 on improving designs and innovating in the space. And this 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:38.160 really became a great example of a buzzword known as synergy. 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:40.959 You've probably heard synergy a lot of times. Synergy it 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:45.000 basically means it's the process of creating a whole that's 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.080 greater than the sum of its parts. And this is 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:52.160 really the case with the Phillips brothers. Individually, they were 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:57.160 both intelligent men who were quite capable in their own spheres, 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.960 but together they were able to accomplish a lot more 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.080 than they could have done on their own. In fact, 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:08.080 as I just mentioned, if Gerard had not received help 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:11.240 from his brother, it's quite possible that the Phillips Company 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.880 would have gone bankrupt before they were able to really 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:19.800 make an impact well. By seven, the business changed because 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.000 carbon filaments went obsolete. There were there was a better 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.720 technology in place that would last longer, it burned brighter 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.440 and used the same amount of energy as carbon filaments, 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:34.040 and that would be tungsten wire filament. So Phillips and 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:38.160 Company switched to designing lamps that used tungsten wire. It 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.000 could actually produce three times the amount of light with 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.720 the same amount of electricity as a carbon filament lamp, 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:47.320 so it made sense to make that change. In nineteen twelve, 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.960 the company was listed on the AMSTERDAMN Stock Exchange and 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:57.000 became a limited company called all Right, I'm gonna give 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:59.800 it a shot, guys, but this is gonna be it's 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.440 it's gonna sound like a three year old trying to 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.800 sound out a word because it's it's very intimidating. So 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:11.120 the company became known as in V. Phillips Glow is 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:17.480 lump in fabricn gloile, lump and fabrican is how I 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.800 will say that, and all you Dutch speakers out there 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:26.080 can scoff at me justifiably anyway. A limited company, in 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.360 case you're wondering, it's an organization made up of investors, 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.560 and each of those investors is protected from liability to 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.240 the extent of their own investment in the business. So, 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:40.400 in other words, just just a simple example, if you 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:44.360 invested ten thousand dollars in a limited company, you couldn't 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.959 be held accountable for more than ten thousand dollars in 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:53.600 liability should something go catastrophically wrong. So really, a liability 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:57.400 company is meant to protect the people that invest in it. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.760 It thus gives you an incentive to invest in the 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:04.440 pany because you stand to gain from your investment and 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:10.480 you're protected from anything really unfortunate. So, for example, if 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:16.120 it's proven that the company h mishandled funds in some 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.400 criminal way, you have a level of protection because of 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.920 the nature of that organization, assuming you're not the actual 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:29.400 person committing the crime. In nineteen fourteen, Phillips and Company 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:34.120 established the net Lab, which was a research and development 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:40.280 facility dedicated to innovation and improving existing technology. Now in 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:43.120 that lab in a T L a B. Is actually 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:48.120 a nickname. The full name for the facility is again, 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:59.880 all right, the Phillips neture Kundig Laboratory. UM, I'm so sorry. Anyway, 0:13:59.880 --> 0:14:02.959 the center was necessary because by this time the company 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:07.280 was beginning to explore other technologies, not just incandescent lamps, 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:11.000 and the company also wanted to develop its own patents 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.000 so it wouldn't be dependent upon third parties. So by 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.319 that I mean, um, all right, So let's say that 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:21.880 that you want to be able to use a particular process. Well, 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.280 when a person or organization receives a patent, when they 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:30.560 filed for a patent and they're granted that patent, their 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:33.880 design is made public. That's part of the agreement to 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:38.720 have a process or design patented. When you do that, 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:43.920 that particular design is publicly available. Anyone can go and 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.480 pull up the patent and see how it is you're 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.600 doing the thing you are doing. That's all part of 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:54.280 the filing process. But in return for publicly saying this 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:58.280 is how we do things, the patent holder gets exclusive 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.240 rights to use that particulcular design or approach in whatever 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.400 way they want for a given amount of time, and 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.600 that given amount of time has changed over the years, 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:12.960 but essentially says that for x amount of years, you 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.360 get exclusive rights to this design. You can do whatever 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.000 you want with it, and if anyone else uses that 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:24.040 same design without your permission, you can sue them for infringement. 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:29.160 So the design is publicly available, which gives the protection. 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.280 Gives protection to the person who holds the patent because 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.800 then they can say, well, clearly, you stole my idea 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:40.640 because my idea is publicly available for you to read. 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.560 But I am protected. I can use that idea exclusively 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.640 and I did not give you permission. So even if 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:50.720 a company came up with its own approach that just 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.560 happened to be the same approach as what has already 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.880 been established in a patent, they would be liable because 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:02.080 they'd be using a system that was already documented in 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:06.320 the patent system. So it's a very interesting way of 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:10.360 protecting your ideas. But one thing you can do if 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:12.680 you own a patent is well, first, first of all, 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:14.840 you can sell it if you want. So if you 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:18.160 are the holder of a patent, you can actually sell 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.480 your patents to another entity. In fact, there are other 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.000 companies that that's all they do is just buy up patents. 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:29.000 But you can also license your patents to other parties. So, 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.520 in other words, you come up with a brilliant idea 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:35.000 on a way to design a particular style of lightbulb, 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.720 and a company wants to make lightbulbs using your design, 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.680 so they pay you a licensing fee, and in return, 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:47.760 you give them permission to use your patented idea. Everyone benefits. 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.320 The company can sell products and make make profit. That way, 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.720 you profit from being able to license your idea to 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.840 someone else. And in fact, there's some companies that's all 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:02.160 they do is licensed patents. They don't make anything. They 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.879 hold the patents for making stuff, but they don't necessarily 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.879 have any manufacturing facilities. They just licensed it out to 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:13.280 other people. They're also companies called patent trolls, and patent 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.879 trolls are a little different. Instead of licensing a patent 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:21.080 to other companies, they wait until a company makes a 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:24.840 product or some other system that infringes upon a patent 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.400 and then they threatened to sue unless the company settles 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:32.200 for an enormous sum of money out of court. And uh, 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.640 that's what a patent troll is. That it's a it's 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.560 an entity that has no interest in putting its patents 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.560 to work in any way other than as a means 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:47.000 of leveraging power over other companies that would want to 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:52.320 use that process. All right, at any rate, Gerard and 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.800 Anton thought it was really intelligent to develop a company 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:01.360 specific research and development facility to help file patents so 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.919 that the company itself wouldn't have to rely on licensing 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:09.919 these third party entities in order to make stuff. The 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.480 first director of the nat Lab was a man named 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:19.040 Jiels Holst. Holst was an engineer turned physicist, a doctor. 0:18:19.160 --> 0:18:23.200 Doctor Holst a former teacher. He was a professional researcher. 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.440 He did early research into super conductivity. That's where you 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:32.960 cool down a conductive substance, you know, a metal, You 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.240 cool it down to very very very low temperatures and 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:41.360 that will eliminate electrical resistance, meaning you have a perfect conductor. Uh. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.959 Holst also had worked with Madame Curie in some of 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:50.080 her experiments and radio activity, so very important person. And 0:18:50.160 --> 0:18:53.600 Holst was a big thinker, and he was determined to 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:57.159 give his researchers a huge amount of freedom to explore 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:03.280 fundamental scientific questions, even if there were no immediately applicable 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:07.560 outcomes to that that that area of inquiry. So in 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:11.400 other words, he said, it doesn't matter if the questions 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.800 you are asking immediately result in some sort of product 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.800 that Phillips can sell. It's important for us to answer 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:21.960 the questions. So go out there and do that. And 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:24.879 the result was that then Lab became an important center 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.480 of research and Phillips and Company actually benefited as a result. 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.280 It's a good example of how fundamental research can result 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.840 in benefits, even if you didn't see the possibility when 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.359 you started out. Some of that research helped in the 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.520 development of infrared and X ray technology, which no one 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.240 really could have predicted at the time. Host was also 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:51.760 UH important because he invited individuals in the scientific field 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.800 to come to nat Lab and to give lectures. For example, 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:01.159 a physicist of certain renown named Albert Einstein gave a 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.679 talk at that lab in nineteen twenty three. So it 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.280 really was a center of learning and research and UH 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:10.879 and kind of a point of pride in the Netherlands 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.800 as well. All right, well, let's go back to nineteen 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:19.600 fifteen UH and the history of the company. So now 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.440 we're getting into the time of World War One, um, which, 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.520 of course back then was just the Great War, So 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:30.400 the Netherlands maintained a neutral status during World War One 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:35.240 and as a result, operations at Phillips remained largely undisturbed. 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.800 In addition, the war was creating coal shortages, and that 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.760 meant that it was harder for people for companies to 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.679 produce coal gas, which meant it was harder to fuel 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.639 gas lamps, and it forced a lot more people to 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.640 convert to using electricity. So, in other words, World War 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:58.240 One actually generated business for the Phillips company. So to 0:20:58.280 --> 0:21:01.679 support the production of new lamps, Phillips invested in a 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.400 couple of different properties to uh to really ramp up production. 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.160 One of them was an Argone production facility. They had 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:12.280 a Argone lamp that was efficient and inexpensive, so it 0:21:12.359 --> 0:21:17.439 was very popular. They also purchased a glass manufacturing plant 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.480 in order to ramp up production on their lamps. In 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:24.120 nineteen nineteen, Phillips introduced a medical X ray tube, which 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:28.600 officially diversified the company from just the incandescent lamp business. 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:32.840 Then that lab was busy researching technologies and filing patents 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:37.199 for everything from gas diffusion to radio wave reception and 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:41.080 the company also began to expand to other countries. They 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:44.400 opened up sales forces in the United States and in France, 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:48.760 and a little bit later in Australia, Brazil and China, 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.040 so they were not taking things slowly. In the early 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.400 part of the twentieth century. Now, the X ray business 0:21:56.440 --> 0:22:00.480 was still really new in nineteen nineteen. Phillips started in 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:03.360 the business by repairing X ray tubes during World War 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:07.000 One and then moved to manufacturing tubes on a small 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:11.080 scale in the Phillips research laboratory. But early X ray 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:15.040 tubes had some pretty distinct disadvantages. One was that they 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:19.159 emitted radiation in all directions, not just whichever one you 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.640 happen to be interested in, which is not just inefficient, 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:27.720 it's also dangerous. Because X ray radiation is ionizing radiation. 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.119 It can potentially cause cancer if you're exposed to it, 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:36.080 so having it emit in all directions was not safe. 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.520 They also relied on high voltage cables, which were exposed 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.560 and thus potentially dangerous. You can electrocute yourself even if 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.240 you were safe from the radiation, you could just die 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:52.320 from the electricity. But a man known as a Bowers 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:57.600 of the Phillips Research labor Laboratory came up with a solution. 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:02.399 Bowers designed a cylindrical X ray tube. The earlier X 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.760 ray tubes were actually spherical, so kind of like a 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:09.600 light bulb is. But the ones the Bowers made were 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:14.320 cylindrical and had a grounded metal canister with a glass 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:17.840 window on one side of the canister. So imagine that 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:24.480 you've got a cylindrical uh, glass tube. You slide that 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:28.440 into a metal canister. The metal canister has one side cutout, 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.760 so it's like a window, and then you coat the 0:23:31.800 --> 0:23:35.600 metal canister with lead and that way, when you turn 0:23:35.680 --> 0:23:39.120 on the X ray tube, X rays can only come 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.119 out the window side. They can't go through the lead 0:23:42.400 --> 0:23:47.080 lined case. So you thus made it more efficient and 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:49.720 safer because you could you could direct the path of 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:52.560 the X rays. Uh. It took a few tweaks to 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.200 get the design just right, but it was a success 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:58.919 and Phillips began to market it. They called it Meta 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:03.200 licks or metallic X M E T A l I X. 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:06.600 Now I'm gonna take a quick break from talking about 0:24:06.760 --> 0:24:08.439 X rays for a second. I'm gonna come back to 0:24:08.480 --> 0:24:10.359 that in a minute, but I want to mention a 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:14.960 few things that also happened around this same time frame. First, 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:21.200 in nineteen twenty, a company called Yeah, that's happening again, 0:24:21.200 --> 0:24:25.760 all right? A company called en V Gamen shopill Lick 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:35.040 binzit Von and Lean Phillips, Globump and fabriacn formed and 0:24:35.119 --> 0:24:38.919 assumed ownership of Phillips. Boy, I sound like I've had 0:24:38.920 --> 0:24:41.760 a stroke, but the short name for it was n 0:24:41.880 --> 0:24:47.879 z bin Zi. Two years later, Gerard Phillips retires as CEO, 0:24:48.240 --> 0:24:51.960 so nine two he steps down and Anton Phillips, his 0:24:52.040 --> 0:24:57.560 younger brother, assumes the position of chairman. At age now 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:02.080 a nineteen seven Phillips bought a company called c. H F. 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:06.400 Mueller of Hamburg. So this is a German company, which 0:25:06.440 --> 0:25:09.920 is why I know how to pronounce it. C h F. 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:14.040 Mueller was founded by Carl Heinrich Florence Mueller in the 0:25:14.119 --> 0:25:19.160 nineteenth century and originally was a glass company. Mueller himself 0:25:19.640 --> 0:25:25.320 was known for being a very artistic uh glassblower, and 0:25:25.359 --> 0:25:29.520 the early products from Mueller were these decorative pieces like 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:34.080 goblets and wine glasses. But over time Mueller began to 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:37.320 refine his process to build glass for gas diffusion and 0:25:37.440 --> 0:25:43.200 incandescent bulbs, and Mueller also had a reputation and a 0:25:43.359 --> 0:25:48.320 history that was tightly tied to X rays. So to 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:51.040 explain that, we actually have to look back at the 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:56.119 discovery of X rays. So let's let's look at so 0:25:56.160 --> 0:26:01.520 in while Gerard was being askewed by his brother Anton, 0:26:02.400 --> 0:26:08.919 there was a physicist named Wilhelm Konrad round jin Um. 0:26:08.960 --> 0:26:12.080 He was experimenting with cathode rays and produced X rays. 0:26:12.480 --> 0:26:15.520 He was not the only scientist who had been experimenting 0:26:15.560 --> 0:26:20.560 with this. Nicola Tesla is another notable person who who 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:25.359 noticed the the existence of X rays, although he didn't 0:26:25.840 --> 0:26:30.880 fully appreciate the the applications of it. But on November 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:37.200 round Gin discovered a screen coated with barry um platino 0:26:37.400 --> 0:26:42.280 cyanide with fluoresce when a nearby gas discharged to activated 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:46.720 even when there was a black cardboard barriers separating the two, 0:26:46.760 --> 0:26:49.399 and he was wondering, what how is that happening? What's 0:26:50.200 --> 0:26:53.520 why is it fluorescing? What's causing that? So he began 0:26:53.560 --> 0:26:56.720 to explore this curious phenomenon and as a result, he 0:26:56.800 --> 0:26:59.840 identified X rays. He noted in one experiment that if 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:02.959 you put your hand between the discharging tube and a screen, 0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:05.800 you could see an image of your hand on the 0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:10.119 screen with your bones a darker image than your flesh. 0:27:10.440 --> 0:27:13.920 That wasn't exactly a high resolution X ray at that time, 0:27:13.960 --> 0:27:16.760 but it showed the potential for it, and not long 0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:20.480 after he published his findings, researchers at the National Physics 0:27:20.600 --> 0:27:26.960 Laboratory reproduced the effect using a cathode ray tube from C. H. F. Mueller. 0:27:28.040 --> 0:27:31.639 The results were interesting but pretty fuzzy, and so the 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:35.800 researchers got in direct contact with Mueller explained what it 0:27:35.840 --> 0:27:37.679