Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes (14 March 1862 – 9 April 1951) was a Norwegian physicist and meteorologist who did much to found the modern practice of weather forecasting.
Gallery of Vilhelm Bjerknes
Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes (14 March 1862 – 9 April 1951) was a Norwegian physicist and meteorologist who did much to found the modern practice of weather forecasting.
Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes (14 March 1862 – 9 April 1951) was a Norwegian physicist and meteorologist who did much to found the modern practice of weather forecasting.
Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes (14 March 1862 – 9 April 1951) was a Norwegian physicist and meteorologist who did much to found the modern practice of weather forecasting.
Connections
Wife: Honoria Sophia Bonnevie
Vilhelm Bjerknes with his wife Honoria and his first two children, Karl Anton and Jacob Bjerknes, circa 1898.
Son: Jakob Bjerknes
Brother: Ernst Wilhelm Bjerknes
Vilhelm Bjerknes with his brother Ernst Wilhelm Bjerknes (left) and his sister in law, Norway's first female professor, Kristine Bonnevie at her cabin Snøfugl, circa 1946.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work.
Fields Of Force: Supplementary Lectures, Applications To Meteorology
(A course of lectures in mathematical physics.This book wa...)
A course of lectures in mathematical physics.This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work.
Vilhelm Bjerknes was a Norwegian meteorologist and physicist, who established himself to be the father of modern meteorology and created an accurate future for weather forecasting. His study of thermodynamics and hydrodynamics and their relationship to atmospheric motion became a popular theory in geophysics.
Background
He was born on 14th of March 1862 in Oslo, Norway and was the son of a reputed mathematician and physician Carl Anton Bjerknes and Aletta Koren who was the daughter of a minister. Bjerknes’s father was a teacher of physics who moved to the research of hydrodynamics. It is stated that Bjerknes assisted his father in his researches which increased his interest in the study of physics.
Education
Bjerknes completed his education from the University of Kristiania in the year 1880. It covered subjects of physics and mathematics. He later studied hydrodynamic until the year 1887 after which he engaged himself in getting the Master of Science degree.
Career
After completing Masters of Science, Bjerknes moved to Paris on a fellowship program and started taking lectures on electrical wave diffusion. He soon became informed about the subjects involving the theories of Heinrich Hertz.
In the year of 1890, Bjerknes traveled to the city of Bonn and joined a university for two years. He became an assistant to Heinrich Hertz. Both of their research had a major impact on the theories of resonance and oscillatory circuits.
Bjerknes returned to Norway in the year 1892 to achieve his Ph.D. The following year he got an offer of being a lecturer at Stockholm School of Engineering. Two years later, he became the professor of mathematical physics and applied sciences at the university.
In the year 1898, Bjerknes derived a major theory in hydrodynamics. He convinced that the atmospheric motion can be studied well when thermodynamics and hydrodynamics are combined together. Since the motion in the atmosphere creates patterns in weather, this could result in great findings in weather forecasting. The study made by Bjerknes was three-dimensional analyses of atmospheric motions which helped in better accuracy in forecasting weather in a long term.
After recognizing the potential of the research, Bjerknes wanted more fund to continue his work. For this purpose, he visited the United States in the 1905 and presented his work at the-the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His theories were well appreciated and he was given research associateship and was honored with an annual grant from the Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C. Bjerknes received the funding until the year 1941 during which the US went into war mode.
Bjerknes stopped his research on electrodynamics and resumed his father’s study on hydrodynamics. In the year 1902, Bjerknes was successfully able to publish his conclusion of research in hydrodynamics titled, “Vorlesungenuber hydrodynamic Fernkrafte”.
In the year 1907, Bjerknes moved to the University of Kristiania and served as a professor of mathematical physics and applied mechanics. Two years later, Bjerknes started lectures on new science techniques for understanding atmosphere and weather forecasting. With his assistant Johann Wilhelm Sandstrom, Bjerknes published the first phase of Dynamic Meteorology and Hydrography followed by the second phase in collaboration with another two assistants viz. Theodor Hesselberg and Olav M. Devik. Impressed by Bjerknes’s work, he was offered professorship and the position of director at the geophysics institute at the University of Leipzig. This honor increased Bjerknes’s status and his work became more noticeable.
When the World War I broke out, Bjerknes lost most of his assistants and his research came in risk. During this time, Bjorn Helland-Hansen who was an oceanographer and Fridtjof Nansen, a zoologist presented Bjerknes with a prospect to open his own geophysical institute at the University of Bergen which he readily accepted.
Bjerknes along with his son Jacob and assistants started their research at the new institute. Based on the studies conducted by Bjerknes, the government established weather observation network for the research applications. The Western Bergen Weather Service was first initiated by military and government. As the accuracy of the forecast became better, it was made accessible to developing aviation business, fishermen, and farmers.
“On the Dynamics of the Circular Vortex with Applications to the Atmosphere and to Atmospheric Vortex and Wave Motion” was published in 1921 which covered advanced research conclusions by Bjerknes and his team.
Bjerknes moved to the University of Oslo as a professor and handed over the geophysical institute to his son Jacob and his assistants he had trained during the time. His first book on kinematics and vector analysis was published in the year 1929. He retired from the University of Oslo in the year 1932 at the age of seventy while his son continued with the research work.
On 9th of April, 1951, Bjerknes succumbed to death due to heart failure in Oslo, Norway.
There is not much information about the political views kept by .
Views
He was highly influenced by the work of his father which shaped up his future. His theory on the various patterns created in the atmosphere became highly appreciated and he also received associateship from the Universities in the United States. Bjerknes had the high determination to complete his research which made him travel across the country for funding. He also had the vision of the conclusions from the research which was to be a great boon for weather forecasting in the future.
Quotations:
Building on the research of his father, he recognized that the air masses named by his father had their own cycle. In a paper, "On the Structure of Moving Cyclones" written in the fall of 1918, he stated that "warm air ascends along the sloping frontal surfaces, causing bands of clouds and precipitation to form along the fronts, whereas the cold air sinks and spreads out along the ground." He also noted that "these vertical motions represent a reduction of the potential energy, which could account for the formation of the cyclone's kinetic energy."
Membership
Norwegian Academy of Oslo (1893)
The Washington Academy of Science (1906)
The Dutch Academy of Science (1923)
The Prussian Academy (1928)
The Royal Society of Edinburgh (1930)
The Royal Society of London (1933)
The U.S. National Academy of Science (1934)
The Pontifical Academy of Rome (1936)
Personality
He was an intellectual and showcased his interest in Physics and Mathematics right from his early age.
Quotes from others about the person
According to Arnt Eliassen, "He put forward the view that weather forecasting should be dealt with as an initial value problem of mathematical physics and carried out by numerical or graphical integration of the governing equations. This is nothing more than treating the atmosphere as a physical system, but at the time it was a revolutionary idea."
Connections
In the year 1895, Bjerknes married a Norwegian Science Student named Honoria Sophia Bonnevie in Kristiania. Two years later they had a son Jacob Aall Bonnevie Bjerknes. The family lived in Stockholm. Bjerknes’s son Jacob later followed his father’s steps and expanded his research and discovered the science of meteorology.