Posted on 02/17/2007 9:42:19 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Sheldon K. Friedlander, whose work in identifying the sources of particles in Southern California smog led to new ways of studying and regulating air pollution, has died.
Friedlander died Feb. 9 at his home in Pacific Palisades of complications from pulmonary fibrosis, his family said. He was 79.
While a professor at the California Institute of Technology in the 1970s, he was among the founders of aerosol science - the study of gases and particles in the air.
Friedlander discovered a way to analyze the chemical makeup of smog particles and trace what was creating air pollution at any given time.
He linked lead particles to gasoline usage and zinc in the air to tire rubber.
"He developed a picture of what was in the smog that was far more detailed than anyone had put together before," Rick Flagan, chairman of Caltech's chemical engineering department, told The Los Angeles Times.
Flagan said more sophisticated versions of Friedlanders methods are used to regulate air quality around the world today.
In 1983, Friedlander moved from Caltech to UCLA where he was a professor of chemical engineering.
He headed the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee from 1982 to 1998. The group gives independent advice to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Friedlander is survived by his wife Marjorie, four children and eight grandchildren.
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His chosen field of study may have hastened his demise, some nasty stuff in that smog...
RIP
For info on Pulmonary Fibrosis
http://www.pulmonaryfibrosis.org/ipf.htm
I remember the LA basin in the seventies as a child.
We would drive up from San Diego, and our eyes would start to feel the burn.
Even just a day visit your throat would be a little rough when we got home.
It was indeed nasty. Maybe that is part of the global warming issues, younger people buy into it more easily because they never saw what a real problem really was.
But I think the age of practical thinking on such matters may be long gone.
RIP.
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