(1930?-) Brilliant electrical engineer and founder of ARP Instruments. Pearlman graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1948, the same year that he wrote a term paper speculating on possible designs for future music synthesizers. However, he did not go into the music business right away; after graduation he joined the electronics firm of George A. Philbrick Researches, which was doing pioneer work on pre-integrated-circuit operational amplifiers. In 1962, Pearlman and a few co-workers broke away from Philbrick and founded Nexus Research Labs. At Nexus, Pearlman did research on analog computing circuits using op amps. He designed some circuits used in NASA's Gemini and Apollo space capsules, and among his patents from that period was one for a circuit that is still used in analog