Carl Anton Bjerknes

Carl Anton Bjerknes
File:Carl Anton Bjerknes2.jpg Carl Anton Bjerknes
Born	(1825-10-24)24 October 1825 Oslo, Norway
Died	Oslo
Residence	Norway
Nationality	Norwegian
Fields	Mathematician, Physicist
Institutions	University of Oslo
Alma mater	University of Oslo
Known for	studies in hydrodynamics, mechanical explanation of gravitation

File:Bjerknes sr earth model 01.JPG

Scientific research model of the earth by Carl Anton Bjerknes. Technical Museum, Oslo.

Carl Anton Bjerknes (Norwegian: [ˈbjærknəs]; 24 October 1825 – 20 March 1903) was a Norwegian mathematician and physicist. Bjerknes' earlier work was in pure mathematics, but he is principally known for his studies in hydrodynamics.

Biography

Carl Anton Bjerknes was born in Oslo, Norway. His father was Abraham Isaksen Bjerknes and his mother Elen Birgitte Holmen. Bjerknes studied mining at the University of Oslo, and after that mathematics at the University of Göttingen and the University of Paris. In 1866 he held a chair for applied mathematics and in 1869 for mathematics. Over a fifty year time period, Bjerknes taught mathematics at the University of Oslo and at the military college.

Influenced by Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Bjerknes worked for the rest of his life in the field of hydrodynamics. He tried to explain the electrodynamics of James Clerk Maxwell by hydrodynamical analogies and similarly he proposed a mechanical explanation of gravitation. Although he did not succeed in his attempts to explain all those things, his findings in the field of hydrodynamics were important. His experiments were shown at the electric exhibition in Paris in 1879 and the year at the Scandinavian naturalist meeting in Stockholm. His son Norwegian physicist and meteorologist, Vilhelm Bjerknes continued the work of his father.

Selected works

• Niels Henrik Abel. En skildring af hans liv og videnskabelige virksomhed (Stockholm. 1880)

Other sources

• .
• Author profile in the database zbMATH