Selim Lemström

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Selim Lemström, painting by Elsa Fohström

Karl Selim Lemström (born November 17, 1838 in Ingå , Grand Duchy of Finland , Russian Empire , † October 2, 1904 in Helsinki ) is considered the first modern Finnish physicist . During the First International Polar Year 1882/83 he was in charge of the Finnish station in Sodankylä .

Life

Selim Lemström was the son of Ingå's bailiff ( kronolänsman ), Carl Gustaf Lemström, and his wife Anna Charlotta, b. Brodin. From 1853 he attended the grammar school in Borgå and in 1857 he enrolled at the Imperial Alexander University, today's Helsinki University . He studied mathematics and physics and received the academic degree of Candidatus in 1862 , in 1864 that of a Magister . Lemström initially taught at a private Lyceum in Helsinki, but turned to science from 1867. He received a scholarship for a study trip to Stockholm , where he carried out research on electromagnetic induction with the physicist Erik Edlund . In 1868 he took part in the 4th Swedish Expedition to Spitsbergen , led by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld . It was there that he discovered his scientific interest in the phenomenon of the aurora borealis . On June 28, 1869, Lemström became a lecturer at the Imperial Alexander University. This was followed by a two-year study visit to France with Henri Victor Regnault in Sèvres and at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers in Paris . Back in Finland, Lemström received his doctorate in 1872. From 1878 to 1903 he was the successor of his teacher Adolf Moberg (1813–1895) Professor of Physics at the Alexander-Helsinki.

Polar station in Sodankylä
On December 29th, 1882 Lemström observed the light cone over the Pietarintunturi mountain

Together with Nordenskiöld, Lemström campaigned for an independent Finnish contribution to the First International Polar Year 1882/83. Both took part in the meetings of the International Polar Commission in St. Petersburg in August 1881 and prompted the Finnish Senate to approve the Russian Tsar Alexander III. Apply for funds to set up their own polar station. This was put into operation at the end of August 1882 in Sodankylä in Finnish Lapland , about 100 km north of the Arctic Circle. A secondary station was built in Kultala on the Ivalojoki River . Lemström took over the management of the station, while the meteorologist Ernst Biese (1856-1926) took over the regular weather observations, especially hourly measurements of temperature , air pressure , humidity and wind speed. The work at the Finnish station went beyond the internationally agreed program, in that additional measurements of the soil and river water temperature and investigations of the flora and fauna in the area were carried out. The agreed observations of the earth's magnetic field were supplemented by measurements of the electrical earth currents.

Lemström mainly devoted himself to researching the aurora borealis, but was unsuccessful in photographing it or reliably determining its altitude. He tried to experimentally prove his theory that it was an air-electrical phenomenon similar to lightning. To this end, he first installed a “polar light discharge apparatus” on the 548  m high mountain Oratunturi and later on the Pietarintunturi near Kultala, made of a long copper wire that was mounted on a spiral-shaped telegraph pole over an area of ​​around 1000 square meters. Iron tips pointing upwards were soldered to the copper wire 50 cm apart. An insulated electrical wire was attached to the inner end of the copper wire and connected to a metal plate buried in the ground at the base of the mountain. Electrical currents could now be recorded with a galvanometer inserted into the circuit . On December 29, 1882, Lemström observed a faint, yellowish-white cone of light above the apparatus, which he believed to be an artificially generated aurora borealis. Other scientists interpreted the phenomenon as a Saint Elms fire .

Finland continued the observation program completed in the polar year in a reduced form in the winter of 1883/84. Lemström spent this time with his wife, who participated in the work, in Kultala. Back in Helsinki he wrote his work L'Aurores Boréale (1886), in which he presented the most important theories about the nature of the northern lights, including his own, which later turned out to be false. After that he gave up researching aurora borealis and studied the influence of electric fields on the growth of cereals and other crops . In his work Elektrokultur , published in 1902 . Increasing the harvest yields of all cultivated plants through electrical treatment on the basis of tests over several years , he reported on laboratory and field tests in which the harvest yields of cultivated plants were significantly increased under the influence of static electrical fields. At the same time, the maturation period has been shortened. B. with strawberries by half.

Honors

Selim Lemström was an elected member of the French Société de Géographie . He was awarded a medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 for his aurora studies . In the Norwegian archipelago of Spitsbergen, the island of Lemströmøya, the mountain Lemströmfjellet and the glacier Lemströmfonna are named after him.

Works (selection)

  • Om Volta-induktionsstrómmarnes intensitets fórlopp , 1869
  • L'Aurores Boréale . Imprimerie de Gauthier-Villars, Paris 1886 ( digitized ).
  • Exploration Internationale des Régions Polaires 1882-1883 et 1883-1884. Expédition Polaire Finlandaise . L'Imprimerie des Hértiers de Simelius, Helsingfors (Ed. With Ernst Biese).
    • Volume 1: Météorologie , 1886. hdl : 10013 / epic.31331
    • Volume 2: Magnétisme Terrestre , 1887. hdl : 10013 / epic.31204
    • Volume 3: Electricité atmosphere, Courants telluriques, Courant électrique de l'atmosphère, Phénomènes lumineux de L'aurore boréale, naturels et artificiels , 1898. hdl : 10013 / epic.30821
  • L'Influence de L'Electricité sur les Végétaux . JC Frenckell, Helsingfors 1890 ( digitized ).
  • Electroculture. Increasing the harvest yield of all cultivated plants through electrical treatment based on tests over several years . W. Junk, Berlin 1902 digitized .

literature

  • HJ Tallquist: Karl Selim Lemström: his life and work . In: Journal of Geophysical Research . Volume 10, No. 2, 1905, pp. 97-100. doi: 10.1029 / TE010i002p00097
  • Päivi Maria Pihlaja: Selim Lemström (1838–1904) . Biographical introduction to Selim Lemström: L'Aurore Boréale (1886) / Om polarljuset eller norrskenet (1886) (= Aurorae Borealis Studia Classica , Volume 3, 2016). doi: 10.7557 / absc.2016.3

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Risto Pellinen: The international Polar Year History in Finland . In: Avaruusluotain . No. 4 , 2007, p. 13-17 (English).
  2. ↑ Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld: The Swedish expeditions to Spitzbergen and Bären-Eiland carried out in the years 1861, 1864 and 1868 under the direction of O. Torell and AE Nordenskiöld. Griesbach's Verlag, Gera 1874, p. 494 ( digitized version ).
  3. ↑ a b Susan Barr, Louwrens Hacquebord, Erki Tammiksaar, Natal'ya Georgievna Sukhova: The Expeditions of the First International Polar Year . In: Susan Barr, Cornelia Lüdecke (Ed.): The History of the International Polar Years (IPYs) . Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-642-12401-3 , pp. 35–107 , doi : 10.1007 / 978-3-642-12402-0 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
  4. ^ K. Moss, P. Stauning: Sophus Peter Tromholt: an outstanding pioneer in auroral research . In: History of Geo- and Space Sciences . tape 3 , 2012, p. 53-72 , doi : 10.5194 / hgss-3-53-2012 (English).
  5. ↑ S. Lemström: Elektrokultur. Increasing the harvest yield of all cultivated plants through electrical treatment based on tests over several years . W. Junk, Berlin 1902, p. 9.
  6. ↑ Anne Urset: The Place names of Svalbard . Norwegian Polar Institute, Tromsø 2003, ISBN 82-7666-194-7 , p. 265 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Lemström, Selim
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lemström, Karl Selim (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Finnish physicist
DATE OF BIRTH November 17, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Ingå
DATE OF DEATH October 2, 1904
Place of death Helsinki