Perkins' earliest achievements include the discovery of the negative pion in cosmic radiation.

[3][4] At Berkeley, he worked with accelerators on K-mesons and the annihilation of protons and antiprotons, at CERN in neutrino scattering experiments.

Perkins made important pioneering discoveries in regard to the weak neutral current (Gargamelle experiment) and the experimental verification of quantum chromodynamics.

Perkins together with Peter Fowler first suggested the use of pion beams as a cancer therapy in a Nature article in 1961.

Powell and Peter Fowler, on the theme of the emulsion technique applied to cosmic rays, nuclear, and particle physics.