WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The Philips Story: Part One 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:14.360 Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.120 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.439 and how the tech are you? It is time for 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:25.400 a classic episode, which means it's gotta be Friday Friday. 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:29.560 Gotta get down on Friday, whether you're sitting in the 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.520 front seat or kicking in the back seat. This episode 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.400 originally published on January twenty, two, thousand sixteen. It is 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:41.120 called The Phillips Story Part one that you can't guess 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.120 what next week's classic episode is gonna be, Let's listen in. 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:50.040 This is from a listener suggestion Roger actually asked this. 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.320 Roger wrote, I'm an avid Tech Stuff podcast listener from 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.680 the UK, especially enjoying the company histories. I have two 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:58.920 companies that I think would be quite interesting to cover. 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.639 The first is Royal Phillips. Phillips has been an innovator 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.600 since the eighteen hundreds, with everything from light bulbs through 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.440 to high tech medical scanning equipment, with a few consumer 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:12.640 items such as compact sets, video recorders, laser disc and 0:01:12.800 --> 0:01:15.959 CD DVD technology thrown in for good measure. It would 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.039 be great to get the history, but I really wanted 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.280 to look at Phillips and talk about the history of 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.640 this company. It is interesting because I think a lot 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:29.200 of people when they think of electronics, they tend to 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:34.600 think of either American companies like General Electric or Westinghouse, 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:40.000 or they think about Japanese companies like Sony and others 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.520 are along those lines, but they tend to forget that 0:01:43.640 --> 0:01:50.360 there were European companies that were instrumental in the development 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.320 of electronics, and in fact, Phillips is one of those companies. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.240 So I thought I would tackle the company history of 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.880 Royal Phillips better known as just Phillips here in the USA. 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:06.560 Although we'll get into how Phillips is changing even as 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.400 I speak, Uh, that'll probably be in part two. So 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:12.840 Part one we're gonna focus on the founding of the 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:17.320 company and go through up to about the beginning of 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:21.760 World War Two, or at least the Netherlands involvement in 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.480 World War Two. Because the Phillips is a company that 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.119 originates from the Netherlands, the company actually takes its name 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:32.919 from a family. The patriarch of that family was Benjamin 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:37.840 Frederick David Phillips, who went by Frederick I'm gonna call 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.480 him Freddie Baby. So Freddie Baby was born in the 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:46.200 Netherlands on December one, eighteen thirty. He was the fourth 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:48.880 son of a family that made its money in the 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:56.280 tobacco trade. His father, Lyon Phillips, was very successful tobacco merchant. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:02.360 Um probably merchant is being too narrowly defined. Uh. He 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.000 was also a cousin to another notable person in history, 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:11.160 Carl Marx, who was the author of the Communist Manifesto, 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.720 and in fact, Marx would often call upon his relatives, 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.200 the Phillips whenever he was in need of money. So 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.799 while Marx was, you know, a communist and believed very 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:31.400 much in the distribution of wealth across the workers, he 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:37.040 was not above asking his wealthy merchant class uh distant 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.440 family for for cash when he needed it. Frederick Phillips 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.040 became a banker and he was incredibly successful. He built 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.880 up a really healthy fortune, and he married a woman 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.920 by the name of Mary Hayliger's. By the way, there 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.480 are a lot of Dutch names in this and the 0:03:55.600 --> 0:04:00.320 next podcast that I will be butchering, largely because is 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.640 Dutch is similar to German, which I know a little 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.800 bit of. But different enough that my instincts on how 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.240 to pronounce things are often going to be wrong. So 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:15.440 my apologies to all of you Dutch speakers out there 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:18.800 and really everyone else too, as I butcher these names. 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.000 But I'm gonna do my best anyway. Frederick Phillips and 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:26.800 his wife had ten children, not all of them survived 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.880 to adulthood, and one of those children was a son 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.960 by the name of Gerard Leonardo Frederick Phillips, best known 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:40.520 just as Gerard Phillips. Now, when Frederick was in his sixties, 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:44.320 he became inspired by his son Gerard, who was interested 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:48.760 in making carbon filaments for light bulbs. This would be 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:53.839 around eighteen nine, and that was around when electricity was 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.840 kind of on the verge of replacing gas lamps for lighting. 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.320 But as we've talked about in tech stuff on previous occasions, 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.799 it was really tricky to build an electric light bulb 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.760 that could burn brightly enough and last long enough to 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.560 be a practical replacement for gas lamps. A lot of 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:18.120 those early filaments would burn out very rapidly, and in fact, 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.280 it was a lot of different innovators who were working 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:22.919 in this space to try and find a way to 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:25.960 make those filaments last long enough for an electric light 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:30.280 bulb to really be practical. In fact, I would argue 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:34.840 that Edison's major contribution was the development of a filament 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:39.560 that was longer lasting than most of the predecessors. Uh, 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.360 he didn't invent the light bulb, he just improved upon it. Well. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.520 Gerard was interested in this as well, and was working 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.360 very hard on trying to come up with a carbon 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:53.159 filament that could be of practical use. And he went 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.560 to his father and said, maybe we could create a 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:01.520 company specifically for this purpose, and Frederick Phillips agreed to 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:05.520 back his son Gerard, and they formed the Phillips and Company. 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:11.440 They actually purchased a factory in the town of Eindhoven 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:16.400 to make lightbulbs. Now, at that time, Eindhoven was sort 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.640 of a modest industrial town. Today it's actually known as 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.839 a center of innovation and high tech scholarship, and that's 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:30.000 largely due to the influence of the Phillips company. But 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.080 it didn't take off immediately. In fact, at first the 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:38.039 company really struggled. So Gerard was a mechanical engineer and 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.280 was really good at that. He was he was very innovative, 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.680 very clever. He graduated from delf University in eighteen eighty 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:48.960 three with a degree in mechanical engineering, and he had 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:53.480 also worked for a company called A E G which, 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:57.359 along with another company called Siemens and Hausk, was a 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:02.120 dominant player in the electric lighting into street in Europe. Now, 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:07.440 according to historical accounts, the lamps that Gerard was producing 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.080 from Phillips and Company were of excellent quality. They were 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:16.960 amazingly long lasting lamps compared to the competitors, and they're 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:22.120 very pretty, very beautiful design. The factory itself had twenty 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.840 eight people working there and they were earning good wages 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:30.160 comparatively speaking, so everything was going well on that end, 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.320 but the business itself was not doing so well. The 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:38.520 sales weren't reflecting the quality, and by nineteen by eighteen 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.400 ninety four, rather the business was already in trouble and 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:44.280 in fact teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. So it 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:50.640 was founded in eighteen by eighteen ninety four, it's already shaky. 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.400 And the main problem was that Gerard Phillips, while he 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:59.480 was an accomplished mechanical engineer, had very little business acumen. 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:04.480 He could produce amazing work, but he had trouble managing 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.120 the business side of things, and so in eighteen nine 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:14.720 his younger brother, Anton Phillips joined the company. Now, Anton 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:17.840 had a background in business and also was a much 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:21.920 more outgoing personality than his brother was. Gerard was kind 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:25.680 of a solitary worker. He preferred to do research in 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.240 the lab and have a quiet environment and avoid conversation, 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.760 which he often thought of as being unnecessary and a 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:36.840 distraction from work. Meanwhile, Anton was much more outgoing. He 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:41.640 enjoyed socializing and networking and was sort of a born salesman. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.520 So together the two brothers were able to turn the 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.760 company around. Gerard was still the head of the company, 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:52.040 but Anton became kind of the director of sales and 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:57.040 uh soon orders were pouring in from all over Europe 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:01.000 and beyond. One of the first big cli aiance of 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:07.839 the Phillips and Company UH business was the Star of Russia. 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:15.120 So the Russian Tsar actually purchased Phillips lamps to light 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:19.640 up the Winter Palace. To a pretty big deal, especially 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:25.200 when you consider that Karl Marx was a relative very 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.880 interesting experience, and there are in fact, entire books written 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:34.600 about Karl Marx and the Phillips family and how that 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:41.120 relationship was complicated and how the different philosophies were at play, 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:45.760 while the Phillips family was still sympathetic at least two 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.679 Marx's plight enough so that they were giving him money 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:53.040 when he needed it. Very interesting stuff, but kind of 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:57.000 beyond the scope of tech stuff. I'll leave that to 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.400 stuff you missed in history class. Maybe they can do 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:04.120 an episode about Karl Marx and his relationship with the 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:08.960 Phillips family. At any rate, Back to Phillips, UH. While 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.760 Anton was becoming something of a sales legend in Europe, 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:17.040 his brother Gerard headed up research and development back in Eindhoven. 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:21.600 So Gerard was constantly improving designs to build better lamps, 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.679 and then Anton would go and sell those designs to customers. 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:30.800 And because of Gerard's success, UH, and because of his 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:35.720 his reputation as a brilliant designer, Anton was actually able 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.720 to promise his clients that the company was always working 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:43.320 on improving designs and innovating in the space. And this 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:49.080 really became a great example of a buzzword known as synergy. 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.319 You probably heard synergy a lot of times. Synergy and 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:56.360 basically means it's the process of creating a whole that's 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:58.440 greater than the sum of its parts. And this is 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:03.520 really the case with the Phillips brothers. Individually, they were 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:08.520 both intelligent men who were quite capable in their own spheres, 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:12.360 but together they were able to accomplish a lot more 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.480 than they could have done on their own. In fact, 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.440 as I just mentioned, if Gerard had not received help 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.600 from his brother, it's quite possible that the Phillips Company 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.240 would have gone bankrupt before they were able to really 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:29.520 make an impact. Well. By nineteen o seven, the business 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:34.880 changed because carbon filaments went obsolete. There were there was 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.240 a better technology in place that would last longer, it 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:40.520 burned brighter and used the same amount of energy as 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:44.800 carbon filaments, and that would be tungsten wire filament. So 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.080 Phillips and Company switched to designing lamps that used tungsten wire. 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.760 It could actually produce three times the amount of light 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.080 with the same amount of electricity as a carbon filament lamp, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.600 so it made sense to make that change. We have 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.119 more to say about the Philips story. After these messages 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.920 in the company was listed on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:22.160 and became a limited company called all Right, I'm gonna 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.920 give it a shot, guys, but this is gonna be 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.720 it's it's gonna sound like a three year old trying 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.040 to sound out a word because it's it's very intimidating. 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:36.240 So the company became known as in V Phillips glow 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:42.520 is lump in fabric and gloile lump and fabrican is 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.680 how I will say that, And all you Dutch speakers 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:51.240 out there can scoff at me justifiably anyway. A limited company, 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.439 in case you're wondering, it's an organization made up of investors, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.920 and each of those investors is protected from liability to 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.559 the extent of their own investment in the business. So, 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:05.760 in other words, just just a simple example, if you 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.760 invested ten thousand dollars in a limited company, you couldn't 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:12.319 be held accountable for more than ten thousand dollars in 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:18.920 liability should something go catastrophically wrong. So really, a liability 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.640 company is meant to protect the people that invest in it. 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:25.600 Thus gives you an incentive to invest in the company 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:30.040 because you stand to gain from your investment and you're 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:36.400 protected from anything really unfortunate. So, for example, if it's 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:42.440 proven that the company uh mishandled funds in some criminal way, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.480 you have a level of protection because of the nature 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:50.199 of that organization, assuming you're not the actual person committing 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:56.760 the crime. In Phillips and Company established the NEAT Lab, 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:00.959 which was a research and development facility be dedicated to 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:06.559 innovation and improving existing technology. Now in that lab in 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:09.760 a T. L a b. Is actually a nickname. The 0:14:09.880 --> 0:14:16.839 full name for the facility is again, all right, the 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:25.720 Phillips neture Kundig Laboratorium. I'm so sorry. Anyway, the center 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:28.840 was necessary because by this time the company was beginning 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:33.560 to explore other technologies, not just incandescent lamps. And the 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.880 company also wanted to develop its own patents so it 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.280 wouldn't be dependent upon third parties. So by that I mean, um, 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.440 all right, So let's say that that you want to 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:49.080 be able to use a particular process. Well, when a 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:53.080 person or organization receives a patent, when they filed for 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:56.840 a pen and they're granted that patent, their design is 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.840 made public. That's part of the agreement to have a 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:04.960 process or design patented. When you do that, that particular 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:09.760 design is publicly available. Anyone can go and pull up 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:12.320 the patent and see how it is you're doing the 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.960 thing you are doing. That's all part of the filing process. 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.120 But in return for publicly saying this is how we 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:24.640 do things, the patent holder gets exclusive rights to use 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.400 that particular design or approach in whatever way they want 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.480 for a given amount of time, and that given amount 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.920 of time has changed over the years. But it essentially 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:39.359 says that for x amount of years, you get exclusive 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:42.160 rights to this design. You can do whatever you want 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:45.320 with it, and if anyone else uses that same design 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:50.200 without your permission, you can sue them for infringement. So 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.960 the design is publicly available, which gives the protection gives 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.800 protection to the person who holds the patent because then 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.920 they can say, well, clearly, you stole my idea because 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:06.400 my idea is publicly available for you to read. But 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:10.000 I am protected. I can use that idea exclusively, and 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:13.080 I did not give you permission. So even if a 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.520 company came up with its own approach that just happened 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.280 to be the same approach as what has already been 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.520 established in a patent, they would be liable because they'd 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:27.520 be using a system that was already documented in the 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:32.240 patent system. So it's a very interesting way of protecting 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.800 your ideas. But one thing you can do if you 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:38.120 own a patent is well, first, first of all, you 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:40.400 can sell it if you want, So if you are 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.760 the holder of a patent, you can actually sell your 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.240 patents to another entity. In fact, there are other companies 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:49.320 that that's all they do is just buy up patents. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:54.320 But you can also license your patents to other parties. So, 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.840 in other words, you come up with a brilliant idea 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:00.360 on a way to design a particular style of light bulb, 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:05.080 and a company wants to make lightbulbs using your design, 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.000 so they pay you a licensing fee, and in return, 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:13.119 you give them permission to use your patented idea. Everyone benefits. 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.640 The company can sell products and make make profit. That way, 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.080 you profit from being able to license your idea to 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.199 someone else. And in fact, there's some companies that's all 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:27.520 they do is licensed patents. They don't make anything. They 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.240 hold the patents for making stuff, but they don't necessarily 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.240 have any manufacturing facilities. They just licensed it out to 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.680 other people. They're also companies called patent trolls, and patent 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.240 trolls are a little different. Instead of licensing a patent 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:46.440 to other companies, they wait until a company makes a 0:17:46.520 --> 0:17:50.200 product or some other system that infringes upon a patent 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.760 and then they threaten to sue unless the company settles 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:57.240 for an enormous sum of money out of court. And uh, 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.560 that's what a patent troll is. That it's an entity 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.280 that has no interest in putting its patents to work 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:08.760 in any way other than as a means of leveraging 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.440 power over other companies that would want to use that process. 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:18.600 All right, at any rate, Gerard and Anton thought it 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.280 was really intelligent to develop a company specific research and 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:27.520 development facility to help file patents so that the company 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:31.240 itself wouldn't have to rely on licensing these third party 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:36.240 entities in order to make stuff. The first director of 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.520 the nat Lab was a man named Hiel's Host Holst 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:45.760 was an engineer turned physicist, a doctor. Doctor Holst a 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:50.160 former teacher. He was a professional researcher. He did early 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:57.000 research into superconductivity. That's where you cool down a conductive substance, 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.159 you know, a metal, You cool it down to a 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.960 very very a low temperatures and that will eliminate electrical resistance, 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.040 meaning you have a perfect conductor. Uh. Holst also had 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.200 worked with Madame Curie in some of her experiments and 0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:16.119 radio activity, so very important person and Holst was a 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:20.040 big thinker, and he was determined to give his researchers 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:24.840 a huge amount of freedom to explore fundamental scientific questions, 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:29.800 even if there were no immediately applicable outcomes to that 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:33.800 that that area of inquiry. So in other words, he said, 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:38.400 it doesn't matter if the questions you are asking immediately 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.400 result in some sort of product that Phillips can sell. 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.159 It's important for us to answer the questions, So go 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:48.240 out there and do that. And the result was that 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.560 then Lab became an important center of research, and Phillips 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:54.880 and Company actually benefited as a result. It's a good 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:59.800 example of how fundamental research can result in benefits even 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.200 you didn't see the possibility when you started out. Some 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.119 of that research helped in the development of infrared and 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.520 X ray technology, which no one really could have been 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:14.080 predicted at the time. Holst was also uh important because 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:17.760 he invited individuals in the scientific field to come to 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:23.240 nat Lab and to give lectures. For example, a physicist 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.919 of certain renown named Albert Einstein gave a talk at 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.639 nat Lab in nineteen twenty three, So it really was 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.959 a center of learning and research and UH and kind 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.640 of a point of pride in the Netherlands as well. 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:42.159 All right, well, let's go back to nineteen fifteen UH 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.480 and the history of the company. So now we're getting 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.040 into the time of World War one, UM, which of 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.040 course back then was just the Great War. So the 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:56.200 Netherlands maintained a neutral status during World War One, and 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:01.880 as a result, operations at Phillips remained largely disturbed. In addition, 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.600 the war was creating coal shortages, and that meant that 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.760 it was harder for people for companies to produce coal gas, 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.520 which meant it was harder to fuel gas lamps, and 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.840 it forced a lot more people to convert to using electricity. So, 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:20.840 in other words, World War One actually generated business for 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:25.240 the Phillips Company. So to support the production of new lamps, 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:29.520 Phillips invested in a couple of different properties to to 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.160 really ramp up production. One of them was an argone 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:36.320 production facility. They had a argon lamp that was efficient 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:40.920 and inexpensive, so it was very popular. They also purchased 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:44.600 a glass manufacturing plant in order to ramp up production 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:48.359 on their lamps. We'll be right back with more about 0:21:48.480 --> 0:22:01.800 the history of the Phillips company. After this break, in 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.480 nineteen nineteen, Phillips introduced a medical X ray tube, which 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:09.960 officially diversified the company from just the incandescent lamp business. 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:14.320 Then lab was busy researching technologies and filing patents for 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:18.680 everything from gas diffusion to radio wave reception, and the 0:22:18.760 --> 0:22:22.800 company also began to expand to other countries. They opened 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:25.760 up sales forces in the United States and in France, 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:29.520 and a little bit later in Australia, Brazil and China, 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:34.399 so they were not taking things slowly in the early 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.720 part of the twentieth century. Now, the X ray business 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:41.840 was still really new in nineteen nineteen. Phillips started in 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.679 the business by repairing X ray tubes during World War 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:48.359 One and then moved to manufacturing tubes on a small 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:52.439 scale in the Phillips research laboratory. But early X ray 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:56.359 tubes had some pretty distinct disadvantages. One was that they 0:22:56.440 --> 0:23:00.520 emitted radiation in all directions, not just jumber one you 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:04.000 happen to be interested in, which is not just inefficient, 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:09.040 it's also dangerous. Because X ray radiation is ionizing radiation. 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:12.399 It can potentially cause cancer if you're exposed to it, 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:17.439 So having it emit in all directions was not safe. 0:23:18.720 --> 0:23:22.800 They also relied on high voltage cables, which were exposed 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:25.919 and thus potentially dangerous. You can electrocute yourself. Even if 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:28.600 you were safe from the radiation, you could just die 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:33.639 from the electricity. But a man known as A Bowers 0:23:34.200 --> 0:23:38.960 of the Phillips Research Laborator Laboratory came up with a solution. 0:23:39.680 --> 0:23:43.800 Bowers designed a cylindrical X ray tube. The earlier X 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:46.840 ray tubes were actually spherical, so kind of like a 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:51.600 lightbulb is. But the ones that Bowers made were cylindrical 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:56.080 and had a grounded metal canister with a glass window 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.440 on one side of the canister. So imagine that you've 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:06.160 got a cylindrical UH glass tube. You slide that into 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:09.800 a metal canister. The metal canstor has one side cutout, 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:13.080 so it's like a window, and then you coat the 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:16.960 metal canister with lead and that way, when you turn 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:20.480 on the X ray tube, X rays can only come 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:23.480 out the window side. They can't go through the lead 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:28.399 lined case. So you thus made it more efficient and 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:31.080 safer because you could you could direct the path of 0:24:31.160 --> 0:24:33.920 the X rays. UH. It took a few tweaks to 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:36.560 get the design just right. But it was a success, 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.359 and Phillips began to market it. They called it metall 0:24:40.400 --> 0:24:46.080 Licks or Metallics M E T A l I X. Now, 0:24:46.119 --> 0:24:48.200 I'm gonna take a quick break from talking about X 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:49.920 rays for a second. I'm gonna come back to that 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:51.920 in a minute, but I want to mention a few 0:24:52.000 --> 0:24:56.320 things that also happened around this same time frame. First, 0:24:56.440 --> 0:25:02.560 in nineteen twenty, a company called Yeah It's happening again, 0:25:02.600 --> 0:25:07.160 all right, A company called n V Gameen shopill Lich 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:16.920 binzit vonder Lean Phillips, Gloriamp and fabriacn formed and assumed 0:25:16.960 --> 0:25:20.840 ownership of Phillips. Boy, I sound like I've had a stroke, 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:23.960 but the short ename for it was n Z bin Zi. 0:25:24.960 --> 0:25:30.760 Two years later, Gerard Phillips retires as CEO, so two 0:25:30.800 --> 0:25:34.680 he steps down and Anton Phillips, his younger brother, assumes 0:25:34.720 --> 0:25:40.320 the position of chairman at age Now a nineteen seven 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:45.080 Phillips bought a company called C. H. F. Mueller of Hamburg. 0:25:46.040 --> 0:25:48.280 So this is a German company, which is why I 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:51.960 know how to pronounce it. C h. F. Mueller was 0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:56.400 founded by Carl Heinrich Florence Mueller in the nineteenth century 0:25:56.920 --> 0:26:01.080 and originally was a glass company. Mule Or himself was 0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:06.800 known for being a very artistic h glassblower, and the 0:26:06.920 --> 0:26:12.040 early products from Mueller were these decorative pieces like goblets 0:26:12.119 --> 0:26:15.920 and wine glasses. But over time Mueller began to refine 0:26:16.040 --> 0:26:19.920 his process to build glass for gas diffusion and incandescent bulbs. 0:26:21.080 --> 0:26:25.960 And Mueller also had a reputation and a history that 0:26:26.119 --> 0:26:30.320 was tightly tied to X rays. So to explain that, 0:26:30.440 --> 0:26:33.280 we actually have to look back at the discovery of 0:26:33.520 --> 0:26:39.160 X rays. So let's let's look at so in while 0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:44.080 Gerard was being rescued by his brother Anton, there was 0:26:44.160 --> 0:26:51.200 a physicist named Wilhelm Conrad laurunjin Um. He was experimenting 0:26:51.240 --> 0:26:54.119 with cathode rays and produced X rays. He was not 0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:57.800 the only scientist who had been experimenting with this. Nicola 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:02.920 Tesla is another notable old person who who noticed the 0:27:04.240 --> 0:27:08.480 the existence of X rays, although he didn't fully appreciate 0:27:08.600 --> 0:27:14.400 the the applications of it. But on November ront Gen 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:19.520 discovered a screen coated with bury um platino cyanide with 0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:24.440 fluoresce when a nearby gas discharged tube activated, even when 0:27:24.480 --> 0:27:28.200 there was a black cardboard barrier separating the two and 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:31.760 he was wondering, what, how is that happening, What's why 0:27:31.880 --> 0:27:35.000 is it fluorescing, What's causing that? So he began to 0:27:35.040 --> 0:27:38.680 explore this curious phenomenon and as a result, he identified 0:27:38.840 --> 0:27:41.320 X rays. He noted in one experiment that if you 0:27:41.400 --> 0:27:44.320 put your hand between the discharging tube and a screen, 0:27:44.880 --> 0:27:47.119 you could see an image of your hand on the 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:50.800 screen with your bones a darker image than your flesh. 0:27:51.720 --> 0:27:55.240