George Porter

George Porter (1920–2002) was a British chemist who pioneered flash photolysis and shared the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for studying extremely rapid chemical reactions.

Flash photolysis: A spectroscopic technique that uses a brief light pulse to create reactive species and tracks their subsequent changes. Porter developed this method to observe short-lived intermediates in chemical reactions.
University of Cambridge: A university in Cambridge, England, founded in 1209. Porter studied chemistry there and began developing flash photolysis after the Second World War.
Manfred Eigen: A German physical chemist who developed methods for studying extremely fast reactions and shared the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Eigen shared the Nobel award with Porter and Norrish for work on rapid chemical reactions.
Time-resolved spectroscopy: Spectroscopic measurement that tracks changes in a system over time after a defined event or excitation. Porter’s flash-photolysis work helped establish methods for observing chemical change as it unfolds.
Transient absorption spectroscopy: A spectroscopic method that measures changes in a sample’s light absorption after a brief excitation. It provided a way to follow the transient species generated in Porter’s experiments.
Ronald Norrish: A British chemist who studied photochemical reactions and shared the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Porter worked with Norrish at Cambridge, where their collaboration advanced flash photolysis.
Royal Institution: A London organization founded in 1799 to advance scientific research and public education. Porter became its director in 1966 and helped shape its research and public-science programs.
Photobiology: The study of interactions between light and living organisms. Time-resolved methods developed by Porter’s research community helped investigate rapid biological light reactions.
Chemical kinetics: The study of the rates of chemical reactions and the factors that influence them. Porter’s measurements extended reaction-rate studies to exceptionally short timescales.
Radar: A system that detects objects by transmitting radio waves and analyzing their returning signals. Porter adapted electronic timing expertise gained during wartime radar work for rapid chemical measurements.

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