[2] When Olpin returned he switched majors and graduated from Brigham Young University with bachelor's degrees in mathematics and physics in 1923.

[2] He then worked at Bell Laboratories where he conducted research with Philo T. Farnsworth that led to the first television broadcast.

He directed research departments at Kendall Mills in North Carolina and at Ohio State University.

[2] He also worked on the Manhattan project that developed the first atomic bomb, and then helped in efforts to rebuild Japan after World War II.

For many years after his death, the Japanese government sent delegations annually to lay flowers on his grave, to honor him.