A Measure of Success | Science History Institute
When the EPA needed a way to identify and measure pollutants, Robert Finnigan, an ex–Cold War engineer, offered his computerized mass spectrometer for the job.
In 1970 many Americans, dismayed by pollution in the air, water, and soil, participated in the first Earth Day and contributed to the political momentum that led to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). To protect the environment the EPA needed legislation, and to create legislation it needed the ability to precisely identify pollutants and measure their concentrations. Enter an unlikely entrepreneur, ex–cold war engineer Robert E. Finnigan. Computers played an important role in waging the cold war. In the 1950s, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists…
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