Sir George PorterDied 31 Aug 2002 at age 81 (born 6 Dec 1920). English chemist, who was awarded a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, with Englishman Ronald Norrish and German Manfred Eigen, "for their studies of extremely fast chemical reactions, effected by disturbing the equlibrium by means of very short pulses of energy." Porter showed how the flash-photolysis method - a technique for observing the intermediate stages of very fast chemical reactions - can be extended and applied to many diverse problems of physics, chemistry and biology. An example is the examination of photosynthesis. He extended these techniques into the nanosecond and picosecond regions. Porter also made contributions to other techniques, particularly that of radical trapping and matrix stabilisation.« |
