Making the Vortex Mixer

This essay will appear in our forthcoming book, “Making the Modern Laboratory,” to be published later this year.In 1959, a pair of enterprising brothers, Jack and Harold Kraft, filed a patent titled “Apparatus for mixing fluent material.” Though simple in concept, their invention solved one of the most fundamental challenges faced by mid-century scientists: mixing fluids quickly and efficiently. The vortex mixer, a small motorized device that vibrated samples, offered the perfect solution, and i...