Paul Cruz

Cruz, PAUL (Crutzen, Paul) (p. 1933) (Netherlands). Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1995 (with M. Molina and F. S. Rowland).

Born in Amsterdam on December 3, 1933 in the family of Joseph Cruz and Anna Gurk. In addition, Paul grew up in a family's daughter. In 1929, aged 17, a Pole Anna moved to Amsterdam for a housekeeper. Here, she met with the German Joseph, who moved here from Waals, a town on the border with Belgium and Germany, near Aachen.

In May 1940 the Netherlands were attacked by the fascist army, and in the same year, Paul went to school. The class moved from room to room, tk. the building was confiscated by the occupiers. During the winter of 1944-1945-s not enough food and fuel. Many died from hunger and disease, including several classmates. Normal education has become possible only with the autumn 1945.

In 1946, Cruz went to high school with in-depth knowledge of the natural sciences and graduated from it in June 1951. He did not want to remain dependent on parents and enrolled in college (Technical School Middelbare) to get the specialty of civil engineering. Training lasted for 3 years.

Since the summer of 1954 to February 1958 he worked in bridge construction offices in Amsterdam, in the Swedish port city of Gavle in the building design bureau.

July 1, 1959 Cruz moved to Stockholm, tk. Paul received a programmer position at the Department of Meteorology Stockholm high school (c 1961 - Stockholm University). Meteorological Institute of Stockholm University and a joint with him the International Meteorological Institute were at the forefront in the field of meteorological research, and here were the high-speed computers.

Until 1966 Cruz, turned-programmer, worked mainly meteorological projects, for example, a model of the tropical cyclone. At the same time he listened to some lectures university courses, and in 1968 defended his thesis on the meteorological theme. This enabled him to probation in England in Klarendonovskoy Laboratory, University of Oxford.

In 1965 Krutsenu was invited to create a model allotropic oxygen distribution in different layers of the atmosphere. This project interested him in connection with the problem of atmospheric ozone photochemistry. Numerous studies have found that depletion of stratospheric ozone occurs with the participation of many radicals, which serve as precursors of natural components, as well as polluting the atmosphere of anthropogenic compounds. This individual cycles do not operate in isolation, but interact among themselves. In 1971, Cruz hypothesized the involvement of nitrogen monoxide in the catalytic destruction of ozone. As a source of nitrogen oxides was considered high-altitude supersonic aircraft. The work was stimulated by reports of a planned sharp increase in traffic intensity is at altitudes of 20-30 km as a result of building a fleet of supersonic aircraft.

In 1973 he defended his thesis for a doctorate on "The photochemistry of ozone in the stratosphere and troposphere and stratosphere pollution high flying aircraft". Since then he has mainly specialized on the chemical and environmental problem.

The ozone problem is closely related to important economic factors, and its solution required the adoption of international political decisions directly affecting the vital interests of many millions of people. These decisions were taken in conditions far from complete and rather contradictory information about the changes occurring in the stratosphere. We can not accurately assess the role of such actions, because their results will appear in a long time. But in any case, they will remain in the memory of mankind as the first in its history, large-scale agreements aimed at preventing disruption in the world of chemical equilibria.

Investigations Cruz stimulated the development of these relatively new scientific disciplines such as environmental chemistry and atmospheric chemistry.

In 1974, Cruz became a researcher of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, USA, where he worked until 1980, while from 1976 lecturing at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

In 1980, Cruz worked at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and in 1983-1985-X was the director of the Institute. Simultaneously served professorial functions: from 1987 to 1991 at the University of Chicago, from 1992 - the University of California (La Jц?lle) and from 1997 to 2000 - at Utrecht University (Netherlands).

In 1995, together with the Americans Krutsenu M. Molina and F. R. Rowland awarded the Nobel Prize 'for his work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly in connection with the formation and destruction of ozone'.

Cruz - the most quoted author among geologists (2911 links in 110 publications for 1991-2001). Apparently, his work is more interested in geophysics and meteorology, as chemists.

In 2000 Cruz retired.