George Porter was born in 1920, to John Smith Porter and Alice Ann (Roebuck) Porter in Stainforth, West Yorkshire. He served as a radar specialist during World War II and at the end of the war Porter entered Cambridge University to do graduate work. There he met and studied under Ronald G. W. Norrish, who had pioneered research in the area of photochemical reactions in molecules. Porter received his doctorate from Cambridge in 1949. That year also marked Porter's marriage to Stella Brooke.
Using very short pulses of energy that disturbed the equilibrium of molecules, Porter and Norrish developed a method to study extremely fast chemical reactions lasting for only one-billionth of a second. The technique is known as flash photolysis. First, a flash of short-wavelength light breaks a chemical that is photosensitive into reactive parts. Next, a weaker light flash illuminates the reaction zone, making it possible to measure short-lived free radicals, which are especially reactive atoms that have at least one unpaired electron. Flash photolysis made it possible to observe and measure free radicals for the first time and also to study the sequence of the processes of reactants as they are converted into products.
When Porter won the Nobel Prize in 1967, he was praised, along with Norrish and Manfred Eigen, for making it possible for scientists around the world to use their techniques in a wide range of applications, opening many passageways to scientific investigation in physical chemistry. In his own work, Porter was able to apply his methods from his early work with gases to later work with solutions. He also developed a method to stabilize free radicals, which is called matrix isolation. It can trap free radicals in a structure of a supercooled liquid (a glass). Porter also made important contributions in the application of laser beams to photochemical studies for the purpose of investigating biochemical problems. Some practical applications of photochemical techniques include the production of fuel and chemical feedstocks.
During his years as a professor at Sheffield University, Porter used his flash photolysis techniques to study the complex chemical interactions of oxygen with hemoglobin in animals. He also investigated the properties of chlorophyll in plants with the use of his high-speed flash techniques. He was able to improve his techniques to the degree that he could examine chemical reactions that were more than a thousand times faster than with the use of flash tubes.
During his career, Porter received many other honors and awards in addition to the Nobel Prize. He was knighted in 1972, and he has been granted numerous honorary doctorate degrees from British and American universities. Porter has also been active outside scientific circles in the promotion of science to the general public. His concern about communication between scientists and the rest of society induced him to participate as an adviser on film and television productions for the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and others.
Porter died on August 31, 2002, in Canterbury, England, at the age of 81.
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