Eric Jonsson

Background

Eric Jonsson was born on August 9, 1922, in Östersund, Jamtlands Lan, Sweden. He is a son of Erik Petter Jonsson and Stina J. Jonsson.

Education

Eric Jonsson earned a Master of Arts from the Royal Institute of Technology in 1944.

Career

Eric Jonsson worked as an engineer at Public Works Department in Stockholm in 1944-46; at VBB Vattenbyggnadsbyran in 1946-1970; and a Department of Water Supply and Environmental Control in 1970-1980s.

Erik Jonsson published his first book in English at the age of eighty. In Inner Navigation: Why We Get Lost and How We Find Our Way, he explores a different topic: disorientation. Drawing from his own experience and other anecdotal evidence, Jonsson develops a hypothesis of cognitive mapping or human's mental picture of their physical space. Jonsson's examples focus on people's inner sense of such mental landmarks as the angle of the sun or the smell of the ocean. When someone changes coasts or moves to a different part of a river, their sense of direction will be off. Jonsson begins by telling a story about his trip to Cologne, Belgium, when he embarked facing the Rhine in one direction but arrived (after sleeping through the night) approaching from another. For the rest of the trip, Jonsson confused east and west to the extent that he thought the Rhine seemed to flow in the wrong direction, and he became so uncomfortable that he soon left for home. In the case of two travelers from San Diego to San Francisco, the smell of saltwater from the north and east, in addition to the familiar sense of the ocean to the west, created a kind of geographical anxiety. That anxiety, Jonsson proposes, occurs because humans tend to put their faith in those cognitive maps rather than the reality surrounding them.

Achievements

• For many years, Eric Jonsson worked as an engineer and earned Arthur Sidney Bedell Award. He has one book published, Inner Navigation: Why We Get Lost in the World and How We Find Our Way.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Inner Navigation: Why We Get Lost in the World and How We Find Our Way

    (In this surprising, stimulating book, Erik Jonsson, a Swe...)

    2002

Membership

• Swedish Society of Civil Engineers , Sweden

• Swedish Association of Conservation Engineers , Sweden

• Eric Jonsson was a secretary of the Swedish Association of Water Hygiene in 1953-1964.

  Swedish Association of Water Hygiene , Sweden

  1953 - 1964

• Institute of Water Engineers and Scientists , Sweden

• Water Pollution Control Federation , Sweden

Connections

Father:

Erik Petter Jonsson

Mother:

Stina J. Jonsson