Arturo Duperier Vallesa
(Pedro Bernardo, Ávila, 1896 – Madrid, 1959)

Arturo Duperier Vallesa graduated in chemistry in 1916 and in physics in 1919. He worked with Blas Cabrera conducting research on the magnetism of matter. Between 1925 and 1929, they published articles in French on the anomalies of the triads of the chemical elements of group VIII of the periodic table [(Fe, Co, Ni), (Ru, Rh, Pd), (Os, Ir, Pt)] and rare-earth metals, establishing the equation of paramagnetism, called Cabrera-Duperier: (c + k) (T + D) = C. Nobel laureate Van Vleck wrote in 1978: “The work done by Cabrera and Duperier played a crucial role in the confirmation of quantum mechanics theory”.

He also worked as a meteorologist in the Observatorio Meteorológico del Retiro in Madrid from 1919. In 1929, he made his first trip to Europe, sponsored by Junta para Ampliación de Estudios, visiting the observatories of Zurich, Trappes, and Villepreux near Paris, Brussels and Puy de Dôme. He became a professor of geophysics in 1933. 
In 1934, he traveled to Berlin and Potsdam to study the techniques and methods for the detection of cosmic rays. As a result of those studies, he focused his research on the cosmic radiation in the atmosphere.

The second stage of his career took place in exile in London, where
he worked with Patrick M.S. Blackett. He studied the mesons (subatomic particles) by constructing an original system, with high sensitivity and thermal stability, to detect and record them. It was installed in the London underground, and Duperie worked there day and night during World War II.

In the 1940s he reached the zenith of his career as a scientist. In1945 he was invited by The Physical Society to deliver the Guthrie Lecture on July 6 at the Royal Institution, his subject being "The Geophysical Aspect of Cosmic Rays." In August, a few days after the release of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the BBC interviewed him (for its Spanish-speaking listeners) about the scientific significance of the new weapon. He returned to Spain in 1953. His scientific instruments were held unpacked at customs in Bilbao’s harbor for five years.