Alan Walsh (physicist)

Sir Alan Walsh ( born December 19, 1916 in Hoddleston, Lancashire; † August 3, 1998 in Melbourne ) was a British- Australian physicist and chemist. He is the inventor of the atomic absorption spectrometry ( AAS) analytical chemistry.

Walsh attended school in Darwen and studied physics at Manchester University with a bachelor's degree in 1937 and then a researcher at the Manchester College of Technology. After that he went into industry, was from 1939 to 1946 at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association as an industrial physicist, most recently 1945/46, as head of the spectroscopy. During World War II he worked at Metal and Produce Recovery Depot of the Ministry of Aircraft Production in Durham, while making 1944 his master's degree (MSc Tech) at the University of Manchester. He retired in 1946 he to Melbourne, where he worked in the newly founded Department of Chemical Physics, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ( CSIRO ). He headed from 1946 to 1957, the department spectroscopy and was then Assistant Chief of the Department of Chemical Physics. He remained there until his retirement in 1977., Where he developed in the 1950s AAS. The first is based on the principle spectrometer was produced mid-1960s at Techtron in Australia. The method revolutionized analytical chemistry and made it possible to quickly, inexpensively and with high accuracy to determine the concentration of many elements, without the use of wet chemistry.

In 1976 he received the Royal Medal in 1982 and the Robert Boyle Medal. In 1958 he became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences and in 1982 the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. 1967/68 he was president of the Australian Institute of Physics, the award in his honor, the Alan Walsh Medal for industrial physicists. In 1969 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1977 he was knighted.