Sir George Porter (Lord Porter of Luddenham) was one of the most highly regarded and well known scientists in Britain. He was appointed Director of the Royal Institution in 1966, awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967, and was the only Director of the Royal Institution to later become President of the Royal Society (1985–1990). Porter had a marvellous gift for communicating his infectious enthusiasm for science, and as President of the Royal Society, he worked hard to improve the status of science, and employed his communication skills ably in the defence of British science under attack from inadequate government funding, of which he was fiercely critical.

It was for his work on flash photolysis in Cambridge that ultimately led him to win the Nobel Prize. Together with Ronald Norrish and Manfred Eigen, he shared the 1967 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, for their work on techniques for observing and studying extremely fast chemical reactions during the processes of combustion, explosion and chain reaction.

In this volume, his peers, former colleagues, students and friends — themselves highly regarded and well known scientists in their own right — come together to honour and celebrate the enormous contributions of this man. They comment on their respective personal and working relationships with Porter and on his work.

The contributors include Mary Archer (University of Cambridge, UK), James Barber (Imperial College London, UK), Godfrey Beddard (University of Leeds, UK), Graham Fleming (University California, Berkeley, USA), Michael George (University of Nottingham, UK), Anthony Harriman (University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK), David Klug (Imperial College London, UK), Harry Kroto (University of Sussex, UK), Edward Land (Keele University, UK), A J MacRobert (University of College London, UK), David Phillips (Imperial College London, UK), Martyn Poliakoff (University of Nottingham, UK), F Sherwood Rowland (University of California, Irvine, USA), Brian Thrush (University of Cambridge, UK), George Truscott (Keele University, UK), James Turner (University of Nottingham, UK), Barry Ward (UK), Frank Wilkinson (Loughborough University of Technology, UK), Keitaro Yoshihara (Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan), and Ahmed Zewail (California Institute of Technology, USA).

Readership: Historians of science and chemistry researchers.