Gustaf Dalén

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**Gustaf Dalén**
Nils Gustaf Dalén
Born	November 30, 1869 Stenstorp, Sweden
Died	December 9, 1937 Lidingo, Stockholm, Sweden
Residence	Sweden
Nationality	Swedish
Field	Physicist
Institution	AGA
Alma Mater	Chalmers University of Technology
Known for	Sun valve
Notable Prizes	Nobel Prize for Physics (1912)

Nils Gustaf Dalén (November 30, 1869 – December 9, 1937) was a Swedish inventor and industrialist, the founder of AGA, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1912 for his work on automatic gas regulator controlled buoys.

[edit] Biography

Dalén was born in Stenstorp and earned his Master's degree and a Doctorate at the Chalmers University of Technology. Daléns most important and most well known invention is the sun valve which made the AGA lighthouse possible. Dalén was blinded in a gas explosion accident earlier the same year as he was awarded the prize (1912). This has led to speculation that he was selected partly out of sympathy.

Despite his blindness, Dalén remained in control of AGA until 1937.

The award of the Nobel Prize to Dalén has sometimes been viewed with controversy, but was actually closer to the general terms of Nobel's will than most awards in physics. Dalén made developments in acetylene chemistry to get a very bright light, developed safe storage methods, and then engineered a special valve that was controlled by the sun, so that the resulting buoys would only operate at night, prolonging their life to about a year. To a rugged coastal area like Scandinavia, these mass-produced long-lived minimal maintenance buoys were a significant boon to safety and livelihood.

Dalén married Elma Persson in 1901, and had two sons and two daughters. ^[1]

He was inventor of a sun valve, which operated as a switch to turn on a light during the hours of darkness. This invention was used extensively for buoys and lighthouses, almost immediately. Another invention of his was Agamassan, a substrate used to transport acetylene. He was chief engineer at Gas Accumulator Company (manufacturer and distributor of acetylene), and later rose into a management position. An accidental explosion blinded him in 1912.

Brother: Albin (ophthalmologist)
Wife: Elma Persson (m. 1901, two sons, two daughters)
Son: Gunnar (engineer)
Son: Anders (physician)
University: MA, Chalmers University of Technology
University: PhD, Chalmers University of Technology
Nobel Prize for Physics 1912
Suffered blindness
Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences
Academy of Science and Engineering
Morehead Medal