Ari Brynjolfsson


Ari Brynjolfsson was an Icelandic physicist known for his work in America on food irradiation and for the development of radiation facilities.

Background

Ari Brynjolfsson was born in Akureyri, Iceland, one of the seven children of Brynjólfur Sigtryggsson and Guðrún Rósinkarsdóttir from Hörgárdalur. He lived in Krossanes, Eyjafjörður and graduated from Menntaskólinn á Akureyri in 1948, then studied nuclear physics at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, from 1948 to 1954, gaining his PhD, with a thesis which dealt with a device he had constructed for accurately measuring magnetism in rocks. Following this he became a special research fellow of the University of Iceland from 1954 to 1955, then an Alexander von Humboldt fellow of the University of Göttingen, Germany, from 1955 to 1957. While at Göttingen he contributed important work in magnetic moments, using a self-devised instrument with which he and others provided the strongest evidence to that date for magnetic field reversals.
He became Head of Radiation Facilities for the Danish government at Risø and then Head of US Army Radiation Facilities, Natick, Massachusetts. He also served as the Director of IFFIT of the Joint FAO/IAEA, United Nations. He gained his DSc in 1973 with a thesis entitled Some Aspects of the Interactions of Fast Charged Particles with Matter which led to his work on plasma redshift.
Many of his publications and much of his work centered around food irradiation and the development of radiation facilities around the world. He received several awards including the Møller Foundation Award for exceptional service to Danish Industry, 1965 "Radiation Science and Technology Award of the American Nuclear Society", 1988 and was noted award recipient from U.S. Brigadier General Merrill L. Tribe in 1963.
He died at the age of 86 in Tampa, FL on 28 June 2013, leaving a widow, five children and nineteen grandchildren.