Paul CrutzenArticle Free Pass Paul Crutzen, (born Dec. 3, 1933,
Amsterdam, Neth.), Dutch chemist who received the 1995 Nobel
Prize for Chemistry for demonstrating, in 1970, that chemical
compounds of nitrogen oxide accelerate the destruction of
stratospheric ozone, which protects the Earth from the Sun’s
ultraviolet radiation. He shared the honour with American
chemists Mario Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland, who discovered in
1974 that manufactured chlorofluorocarbon gases also contribute
to ozone depletion. Crutzen received a doctorate in meteorology
from Stockholm University in 1973. He worked at the Max Planck
Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Ger. In 1970 he discovered
that nonreactive nitrous oxide (N2O), produced naturally by soil
bacteria, rises into the stratosphere, where solar energy splits
it into two reactive compounds, NO and NO2. These compounds,
which remain active for some time, react catalytically with
ozone (O3), breaking it down into molecular oxygen (O2). His
research was published that yea