A Long shot that paid off: CSIRO's atomic aborption project

The discovery in the early 19th century that chemical elements could be identified by observing their emission spectra lead to the development of accurate methods of chemical analysis based on atomic emission spectra. But it was nearly 100 years before Dr A. Walsh of the CSIRO Division of Chemical Physics started asking questions and became convinced that there would be many fundamental advantages in using spectrochemical methods based on atomic absorption spectra. Despite many technical difficulties and lack of interest overseas, Dr Walsh and his colleagues persisted and finally showed that the technique they had devised, had widespread applications in fields as diverse as medicine, engineering, agriculture and mineral exploration. Cinematography: Peter Bruce