Gunnar Nordström

Gunnar Nordström (12 March 1881 – 24 December 1923) was a Finnish theoretical physicist best remembered for his theory of gravitation, which was an early competitor of general relativity. Nordström is often designated by modern writers as The Einstein of Finland due to his novel work in similar fields with similar methods to Einstein.

Education and career Picture taken in 1900 of three high school graduates; Gunnar Nordström is on the left. Nordström graduated high-school from Brobergska skolan in central Helsinki 1899. At first he went on to study mechanical engineering, graduating in 1903 from the Polytechnic institute in Helsinki, later renamed Helsinki University of Technology and today a part of the Aalto University. During his studies he developed an interest for more theoretical subjects, proceeding after graduation to further study for a master's degree in natural science, mathematics and economy at the University of Helsinki (1903–1907). After the war he declined a professorship at the University of Berlin, a post awarded instead to Max Born, in order to return to Finland in 1918 and hold at first the professorship of physics and later the professorship of mechanics at the Helsinki University of Technology. In 1922 he was elected member of The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters.

One of the keys to Nordström's success as a scientist was his ability to learn to apply differential geometry to physics, a new approach that also would eventually lead Albert Einstein to the theory of general relativity. Few other scientists of the time in the world were able to make effective use of this new analytical tool, with the notable exception of Ernst Lindelöf. The solution was also found by Hans Reissner, Hermann Weyl and George Barker Jeffery, and it is nowadays known as the Reissner–Nordström metric. Nordström maintained frequent contact with many of the other great physicists of the era, including Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein. For example, it was Bohr's contributions that helped Nordström to circumvent the Russian censorship of German post to Finland,

Today, there is limited public knowledge of Nordström's contributions to science, even in Finland. Among his publications there is one from 1913 regarding the measurement of the radioactive emancipation power of different springs and ground waters in Finland.

Selected publications During Nordström's career he published 34 articles and research papers in languages including German, Dutch, Finnish, and his mother-tongue Swedish. Nordström is probably the first person to write about the theory of relativity in the languages of Finland.

Die Energiegleichung für das elektromagnetische Feld bewegter Körper, 1908, Doctoral dissertation Rum och tid enligt Einstein och Minkowski, 1909, published in a series of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters: Öfversigt af Finska Vetenskaps-Societetens Förhandlingar Relativitätsprinzip und Gravitation, 1912, in Physikalische Zeitschrift Träge und Schwere Masse in der Relativitätsmechanik, 1913, in Annalen der Physik Über die Möglichkeit, das Elektromagnetische Feld und das Gravitationsfeld zu vereiningen, 1914, in Physikalische Zeitschrift Zur Elektrizitäts- und Gravitationstheorie, 1914, in the series Öfversigt Über eine mögliche Grundlage einer Theorie der Materie, 1915, in the series Öfversigt Een en ander over de energie van het zwaarte krachtsveld volgens de theorie van Einstein, 1918