Kristian Birkeland: The First Space Scientist PDF
Preview Kristian Birkeland: The First Space Scientist
A S ASTROPHYSICS AND S S L SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY L KRISTIAN BIRKELAND The First Space Scientist ALV EGELAND WILLIAM J. BURKE KRISTIANBIRKELAND ASTROPHYSICS AND SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY VVVOLUME325 EDITORIALBOARD Chairman W.B.BURTON,NationalAstronomyObservatory,Charlottesville,Virginia,U.S.A. ([email protected]);UniversityofLeiden,TheNetherlands([email protected]) ExecutiveCommitte J.M.E.KUIJPERS,FFFacultyofScience,Nijmegen,TheNetherlands E.P.J.VANDENHEUVEL,AstronomicalInstitute,UniversityofAmsterdam,TheNetherlands H.VANDERLAAN,AstronomicalInstitute,UniversityofUtrecht,TheNetherlands MEMBERS I.APPENZELLER,LandessternwarteHeidelberg-KKKo¨¨nigstuhl,Germany J.N.BAHCALL,TheInstituteforAdvancedStudy,Princeton,U.S.A. F.BERTOLA,Universittta´´diPPPadova,Italy J.P.CASSINELLI,UniversityofWisconsin,Madison,U.S.A. C.J.CESSARSKY,Centred’EtudesdeSaclay,Gif-sur-YvetteCedex,France O.ENGVOLD,InstituteofTheoreticalAstrophysics,UniversityofOslo,Norway R.MCCRAY,UniversityofColorado,JILA,Boulder,U.S.A. P.G.MURDIN,InstituteofAstronomyCambridge,U.K. F.PACINI,IstitutoAstronomiaArcetri,Firenze,Italy V.RADHKRISHNAN,RamanResearchInstitute,Banglore,India K.SATO,SchoolofScience,TheUniversityofTokyo,Japan F.H.SHU,UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley,U.S.A. B.V.SOMOV,AstronomicalInstitute,MoscowStateUniversity,Russia R.A.SUNYAEV,SpaceResearchInstitute,Moscow,Russia Y.TAAANNNAKA,InstituteofSpace&AstronauticalScience,Kanagawa,Japan S.TREMAINE,CITA,PrincetonUniversity,U.S.A. N.O.WEISS,UniversityofCambridge,U.K. KRISTIAN BIRKELAND The First Space Scientist by ALVEGELAND UniversityofOslo,Norway and WILLIAMJ.BURKE AirForceResearchLaboratory,USA AC.I.P.CataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. ISBN-101-4020-3293-5(HB)SpringerDordrecht,Berlin,Heidelberg,NewYork ISBN-101-4020-3294-3(e-book)SpringerDordrecht,Berlin,Heidelberg,NewYork ISBN-13978-1-4020-3293-6(HB)SpringerDordrecht,Berlin,Heidelberg,NewYork ISBN-13978-1-4020-3294-3(e-book)SpringerDordrecht,Berlin,Heidelberg,NewYork PublishedbySpringer P.O.Box17,3300AADordrecht,TheNetherlands. Printedonacid-freepaper CaptiontoFrontPlate:ProfessorKristianBirkelandwithhislefthandrestingonanelectric dischargetubeofthehigh-voltagedeviceusedin1896togenerateartificialauroraldisplaysin hislaboratory.AstaNørregaard(1853–1933)paintedthisportraitin1906(100×83cm). AllRightsReserved (cid:1)C 2005Springer Nopartofthisworkmaybereproduced,storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted inanyformorbyanymeans,electronic,mechanical,photocopying,microfilming,recording orotherwise,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthePublisher,withtheexception ofanymaterialsuppliedspecificallyforthepurposeofbeingentered andexecutedonacomputersystem,forexclusiveusebythepurchaserofthework. PrintedintheNetherlands. CONTENTS Preface......................................................... ix Introduction..................................................... 1 PartI:BackgroundandEducation.............................. 11 1Atthe19thCentury’sEnd....................................... 11 1.1UnionofNorwayandSweden ............................... 11 1.2TheRoyalFrederikUniversityinKristiania................... 12 1.3EarlyInvestigationoftheAuroraandGeomagnetism........... 13 2ANewAbel................................................... 17 2.1TheBirkelandFamily....................................... 17 2.2HighSchoolandUniversityEducation........................ 19 2.3PostgraduateResearchinFrance,Switzerland,andGermany.... 22 PartII:GeomagneticandSolarSystemResearch ................ 27 3AurorainaVacuumChamber................................... 27 3.1ElectromagneticWaveExperiments.......................... 27 3.2EarlyLaboratorySimulations................................ 28 3.3Birkeland’sOfficesandLaboratoriesattheUniversity.......... 34 3.4TerrellaasAnodeExperiments .............................. 36 4TheNorwegianAuroralExpeditions............................. 45 4.1Birkeland’sFirstExpeditions ................................ 45 4.2ArcticExpeditionof1902–1903 ............................. 57 4.2.1TheFourStations...................................... 61 4.2.2Birkeland’sMainResearchContribution................. 66 4.3ClassificationofGeomagneticDisturbances................... 70 4.3.1PolarElementaryStorms............................... 72 4.3.2EquatorialPerturbations................................ 73 4.3.3Cyclo-MedianPerturbations............................ 74 4.3.4Field-AlignedCurrentsinSpace........................ 75 4.4ThePermanentStationatHalddeMountain................... 77 4.5ControversieswiththeBritishSchool......................... 80 5TheUniverseinaVacuumChamber............................. 87 5.1TerrellaasCathodeExperiments............................. 87 5.2SunspotsandtheSolarMagneticField........................ 87 5.3CometTails................................................ 90 5.4Saturn’sRings.............................................. 93 5.5ZodiacalLight ............................................. 94 5.6ConflictswithCarlStørmer.................................. 98 vi CONTENTS PartIII:TechnologyandAppliedPhysics........................ 101 6 FastSwitchesandElectromagneticCannons.................... 101 7 InasLittleasFourYears...................................... 109 7.1PlasmaTorchandNitrogenFixation...................... 109 7.2FoundationofNorskHydro.............................. 115 7.3ConflictwithSamEyde.................................. 120 7.4MarcusWallenberg ..................................... 123 7.5OtherTechnicalApplications............................. 125 7.5.1X-Rays ........................................... 126 7.5.2AtomicEnergy .................................... 126 7.5.3RocketPropulsion ................................. 128 7.5.4RadiowavePropagation............................. 128 7.5.5ProductionofMargarine............................ 129 7.5.6HearingAid....................................... 129 7.5.7CodCaviar........................................ 130 7.5.8RadiationTreatment................................ 130 PartIV:BirkelandtheMan..................................... 131 8 AsSeeninHisOwntime ..................................... 131 8.1TeacherandExperimenter ............................... 132 8.2BirkelandasaPopularAuthor............................ 135 8.3PositionsandHonors.................................... 137 8.4NominationsfortheNobelPrize.......................... 138 8.4.1NobelPrizeinChemistry........................... 139 8.4.2NobelPrizeinPhysics.............................. 140 9 Consummatusinbrevi,explevittemporamulta.................. 141 9.1Birkeland’sHealth....................................... 141 9.2MarriageandDivorce ................................... 143 9.3SojourninEgypt........................................ 145 9.4DeathinTokyo......................................... 148 9.5ManyFriends........................................... 156 9.6Birkeland’sWill......................................... 162 PartV:Birkeland’sHeritage.................................... 165 10 FromSmallAcorns........................................... 165 10.1ScienceEducationinNorway ............................ 166 10.2InfluenceonSolar-TerrestrialResearch.................... 167 11 InMemoriam................................................ 175 11.1KristianBirkelandResearchFund ........................ 175 11.2BirkelandSymposium................................... 176 CONTENTS vii 11.3BirkelandLectureSeries................................. 176 11.4TheNorwegian200KronerBanknote..................... 179 Appendix1 Birkeland’sScientificPublications.................... 181 Appendix2 ArchivesandUnpublishedSources................... 189 OlafDevik’sPersonalArchive................................. 189 TheBirkeland-EydeIndustrialMuseumatNotodden............. 189 NorwegianTechnicalMuseuminOslo.......................... 190 TheNationalLibraryArchive ................................. 191 NorskHydroArchive......................................... 191 SamEydeArchive ........................................... 191 NorwegianStortingArchives.................................. 192 UniversityofOslo,CentralAdministration...................... 192 StockholmEnskildaBankenArchives.......................... 192 NorwegianAcademyofScienceandLettersArchive............. 192 PrintedSourcesfromNorwegianNewspapersandJournals....... 192 Biographies.................................................. 194 Appendix3 Patents ............................................ 195 Appendix4 Letters............................................. 201 Letter:BirkelandtoKajaGeemuyden.......................... 201 ExtractsfromTerada’sDiaryConcerningKristianBirkeland inMay–June1917............................................ 203 Letter:TeradatoBirkeland(writteninEnglish).................. 205 Letter:TeradatoBirkeland(writteninEnglish).................. 206 Letter:NagaokatoBirkeland(writteninEnglish)................ 207 Letter:TeradatoBirkeland(writteninEnglish).................. 208 Letter:NagaokatoBirkeland(writteninEnglish)................ 209 Letter:GerdaThomsentoKarlDevik .......................... 210 Letter:EriksentoBirkeland................................... 213 Bibliography.................................................... 215 Index........................................................... 219 PREFACE This scientific biography of Kristian Birkeland (1867–1917) was written to bring the story of a Norwegian national hero to the attention of the English- speaking world. Birkeland’s heroic stature was established not on a field of military battle, but in the bitter cold of the Artic wilderness as he sought to answerbasicquestionsabouthowtheSuncontrollednorthernlightsandmag- netic storms. He was also a father of Norsk Hydro one of Norway’s largest industries.Birkelanddiedbeforereachingtheageof50. Because Birkeland never kept a diary, documented information about his fffamilyandprivatelifeissparse.Beforehedied,OlafDevik,thelastofBirke- land’s close friends, gave a long interview and graciously transferred his per- sonal archive to A.E. Birkeland’s 82 scientific papers and three book-length publications map the progress of his investigations. We are grateful for the access granted to review the contents of many different archives. We greatly benefited from discussions with Professors Leiv Harang and Hannes Alfve´n as well as members of the Norsk Hydro staff. We are very grateful to Profes- sor Naoshi Fukushima for translating and making available to us Birkeland- relatedsegmentsofTorahikoTerada’sdiary.A.E.wouldalsoliketothankEspen TTrondsen(UniversityofOslo)forcomputerassistanceandMrsL.Hedlundfor languageadvice. We also extend special thanks to the staffs at The Norwegian Technical Museum,theAltaMuseumresponsiblefortheHalddeObservatory,andtothe Birkeland-Eyde Industrial Museum at Notodden for providing useful illustra- tions. The authors express our special thanks to Ms Louise C. Gentile of Boston College Institute for Scientific Research for proofreading and editing our manuscript. Thisbookwouldhavebeenimpossibletowritewithouttheconstantencour- agement of our families, professional colleagues, and friends. Our gratitude extendstoallwhomadethisbookpossible. AlvEgeland WWWilliamJ.Burke INTRODUCTION:TEMPORAMUTANTETNOSCUM ILLISMUTAMUR Our lives pass within confines that are brief in time and limited in range. Miraclesofmodernmedicineprolongourdays;modernmeansofcommunica- tionandtransportationextendourreachacrosstheglobe.Stillweknowlimits. Personal influence is restricted in duration and locality. Yet there are people, Mozart comes to mind, whose contributions to collective human experience extend beyond their prescribed times and places. We place before readers of thisbook,asynopsisofthelifeandcontributionsofsuchaman,OlafKristian Bernhard Birkeland, a Professor of Physics at The Royal Frederik University in Kristiania,1 the capital of Norway, near the beginning of the 20th century. OursubtitleTheFirstSpaceScientist,placesBirkeland’slifeinthecontextof space exploration, half a century before “Sputnik” and “Apollo” entered our vocabularies. Over the course of the 20th century “space” evolved in the public con- sciousnessfromthecaptivatingsciencefictionofJulesVerne(1828–1905)to apracticalrealitythattouchesinnumerableaspectsofmodernliving.Weplan ouractivitiesaroundweatherforecastsbasedonimagesfromsatelliteshovering about36,000kilometersabovetheEarth’ssurface.Howdidthistransformation comeabout?Whileitrepresentsatriumphofrockettechnology,muchmoreis involved. Scientists had to devise and miniaturize electronic devices. This re- quiredthedevelopmentofnewmaterialsthatcouldwithstandandoperateinthe harshradiationenvironmentsofspace.Industryhadtocreatenewmanagement and quality assurance skills to meet schedules of unprecedented complexity. Everysinglemechanicalandelectroniccomponenthastoworkwithinexacting specifications.Oncelaunched,repairservicesarenotavailabletoreplacefailed components on a 100 million dollar spacecraft. The extraordinarily high cost of entry to space requires national and international investments and visions of future possibilities. The critical alliances among science, government, and industryneededtounderstandandoperateinspaceweresimplyunimaginable asthe20thcenturybegan. Atthetimescientistsconstitutedaverysmallpercentageofthetotalpopula- tion.Thevastmajorityofthesewereeitherassociatedwithuniversitiesorinde- pendentlywealthy.Oftheformer,teachingresponsibilitiesusuallyoutweighed 1In1925,Norway’scapitalrevertedtoOslo,itsnamebeforethedevastatingfirein1624.King KristianIVofDenmarkrebuilttheregionandrenamedthecity.For300years,thecitywascalled Christiania,butduringthelastperiodwasspelledKristiania,asusedhere.
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