Arturo Duperier Vallesa

Arturo Duperier Vallesa (Pedro Bernardo, Ávila, November 12, 1896 – Madrid, February 10, 1959) was a Spanish physicist, noted especially for his study of cosmic radiation.

Biography

He trained in 1924 under the direction of Blas Cabrera, whose favorite disciple he was, first at the Physical Research Laboratory, founded in 1910, and later at the Department of Electricity and Magnetism of the National Institute of Physics and Chemistry, which he directed until his exile; both institutions under the aegis of the Board for the Extension of Studies and Scientific Research. With Blas Cabrera he formulated what later became known as the "Cabrera-Dupierer law". In 1929, thanks to a JAE pension, he was able to study in Strasbourg, he worked with Pierre Weiss, and then, in 1932, in Paris with Charles Maurin.

At the end of 1935, he carried out the first scientific research in Spain on cosmic radiation at the Central Meteorological Institute.

In 1939, with the end of the civil war, he went into exile in England, working as a professor at the University of Birmingham and Imperial College London. Knowing the variations in intensity of cosmic rays at sea level over time required their participation in a project developed for this purpose, carried out by the Physics Department of the University of Manchester. The project was led by the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics P.M.S. Blackett. Duperier established himself, thanks to the work of those years, as a world authority on cosmic rays, the specialty from which modern particle physics has derived.

Dupierer had been dismissed from his university chair, as part of the radical purge process at the end of the war, along with Blas Cabrera, Enrique Moles, Cándido Bolívar and other science professors. The main charge against him before Court of Political Responsibilities No. 9 in Madrid, was not having taken advantage of a stay in Paris in July 1937 to defect from the Republic, where he represented Spain at the International Conference on Chronometry and Metrology.

In 1953 he returned to Spain permanently, and began to teach the new discipline of Cosmic Radiation in his Chair at the University of Madrid, which he alternated with important studies that he presented at numerous International Congresses where he was insistently requested. Duperier returned to Spain taking advantage of the impulse given by Joaquín Ruiz-Giménez, then Minister of National Education, to the recovery of exiled brains, but upon his return, he was not allowed to bring into the country the laboratory donated by the British physicists, which which he did not achieve either for the rest of his life. Duperier, who had stood out as an experimenter, was unable to continue his empirical research on cosmic rays, being relegated to teaching theoretical courses.

Elected a full member of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences on February 5, 1958, he was appointed to the same chair as Miguel Catalán Sañudo but, like him, he died without having taken office.

In 1959 he was posthumously awarded the Juan March Science Prize.

Posts

Magnetism of materials

• "Thermomagnetic study of water, some dissolutions of some paramagnetic sodium salts", doctoral thesis, University of Madrid, (1924).
• "Variation of the diamagnetic constant of water with temperature" with B. Cabrera, Anales of the Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry (ASEFQ), 22, 160-167, (1924).
• "Thermomagnetic study of some dissolutions", ASEFQ, 22, 383-397, (1924).
• "The variation thermique du magnétisme de l'eau et de quelques solutions paramagnétiques" with B. Cabrera, Jour. Phys. et Radium, 6, 121-138, (1925).
• "Sur le paramagnétisme des familles du palladium et du platine" con B. Cabrera, Comptes Rendus, 185, 414-416, (1927).
• "Sur les propriétés paramagnétiques des terres rare" con B. Cabrera, Comptes Rendus, 188, 1640-1642, (1929).
• "About the magnetic properties of rare lands" with B. Cabrera, ASEFQ, 27, 671-682, (1929).
• "New thermal study on the magnetic properties of rare lands", ASEFQ, 28, 47-55, (1930).
• "Thermomagnetic study of some anhydric compounds of Co and Ni" with B. Cabrera, ASEFQ, 29, 5-14, (1931).
• "Magnetism of some chlorides of the Platinum family," Bol. Come on. Cien., 9, 1-9, (1936).
• "Further results on the magnetism of chlorides of the palladium and platinum triads of elements" with B. Cabrera, Proc. Phys. Soc.,51, 845-858, (1939).

Meteorology

• " Temperature conception in matter and radiation," An. Soc. Esp. Met., 1, 24-48, (1927).
• "Thermodynamic study of convection condensation", An. Soc. Esp. Met., 1, 71-78 and 103-105, (1927). Also published in ASEFQ, 26-2nd part, 5-24, (1928).
• "Vertical temperature distribution in the atmosphere of central Spain", ASEFQ, 30, 743-750, 1932. Also published in Serv. Met. Esp., Serie A, 1, 10 pp., (1933).
• "On the fluctuations of the earth's electric field," ASEFQ, 30, 751-758, 1932. Also published in Serv. Met. Esp., Serie A, 2, 10 pp., (1933).
• "Les fluctuatuions du champ électrique terrestrial" with G. Collado, Comptes Rendus, 197, 422-423, (1933).
• "On the electrical conductibility of the air in Madrid" with J.M. Vidal, ASEFQ, 35, 5-20, (1937). Also published in Serv. Met. Esp., Serie A, 6, 23 pp., (1937).
• "Simultaneous fluctuations in electrical potential, conductivity and spatial load of air" with J.M. Vidal and G. Collado, Serv. Met. Esp., Serie A, 8, 19 pp., (1938).

Cosmic radiation

• "Cosmic radiation in Madrid and Valencia", ASEFQ, 35, 249-262, (1937). Also published in Serv. Met. Esp., Serie A, 7, 18 pp., (1937)
• "The seasonal variations of cosmic-ray intensity and temperature of the atmosphere", Proc. Roy. Soc. A, 177, 204-216, (1941).
• "Cosmic rays and solar and geomagnetic activity", The Observatory, 64, 190, (1942).
• "Cosmic rays and magnetic storms", Nature, 149, 579-580, (1942).
• "An exceptional increase of cosmic rays", Nature, 151, 308, (1942).
• "A new cosmic-ray recorder and the air-absorption and decay of particles", Terrestrial magnetism and atmospheric electricity (Carnegie institution of Washington), 49, 1 (1944).
• "Absorption in the atmosphere and decay of cosmic rays", Nature, 153, 529-530, (1944).
• "The geophysical aspect of cosmic rays", Proc. Phys. Soc., 57, 464-477, (1945). Also published in Nature, 783, (1945).
• "Cosmic rays and the freat sunspot group of January 29 - February 12, 1946" with M. McCaig, Nature, 157, 477, (1946).
• "A lunar effect on cosmic rays?", Nature, 157, 296, (1946).
• "Solar and sidereal diurnal variations of cosmic rays", Nature, 158, 196, (1946).
• "Solar and sidereal 6-hourly variations of cosmic rays", Nature, 158, 944-945, (1946).
• "Temperature effect of cosmic rays", Proc. Cosmic ray international conference at Cracow (Poland-oct.1947).
• "Further results on the cosmic ray lunar effect", Proc. cosmic ray international conference at Cracow (Poland-oct.1947).
• "The tempereature effect on cosmic-ray intensity and the height of meson formation", Proc. Phys. Soc., 61, 34-40, (1948).
• "Temperature at the height of 100mb and the intensity of mesons at sea level", special supplement on cosmic rays of Research, 73-75, (1949).
• "Latitude effect and pressure-level of meson formation", Nature, 163, 369-370, (1949).
• "The meson intensity at the surface of the earth and the temperature at the production level", Proc. Phys. Soc., 62, 684-696, (1949).
• "Solar influences on cosmic rays", Council international des unions scientifiques. Sixieme rapport de la commission pour l'etude des relations entre les phenomenes solaires et terrestrials, 193, (1949).
• "Amplitude of the diurnal variation of cosmic ray intensity and geomagnetic activity", cosmic ray international conference at Como, (1949).
• "Temperature of the upper atmosphere and meson production", Nature, 167, 312-313, (1951).
• "On the positive temperature effect of the upper atmosphere and the process of meson production", Journal of atmospheric and terrestrial physics, 1, 296, (1951).
• "The diurnal variation of cosmic rays and the m regions of the sun", Recueol des travaux du confres international sur le stripnement cosmique a Bagneres de Bigorre (France), 9 July of 53.
• "On the positive effect", Communication to the cosmic ray international conference at Guanajuato (Mexico), sept-1955.
• "The positive effect of cosmic rays at sea-level", Facultad de Ciencias de la Univ. de Madrid, (1956).
• "New method for calculating the phenomena of interaction between particles dating from very high energies and their trajectories," Edinburgh's Congress of Cosmic Rays (1958).

Other works

• "Calling the intellectuals of the world of the men of science and artists of the House of Culture of Valencia" with E. Moles, A. Machado and another 20, Valencia, (1937).