Background
He was born in Trondhjem as a son of physician Fredrik Waldemar Bødtker (1824-1901) and Sophie Jenssen (1830-1898).
He was born in Trondhjem as a son of physician Fredrik Waldemar Bødtker (1824-1901) and Sophie Jenssen (1830-1898).
He spent most of his career at the University of Kristiania, where he was a professor from 1918. He originally took education as a pharmacist, graduating in 1887, but also studied a wide array of fields of chemistry. He eventually specialized in "benzol homologs" and alicyclic compounds.
He spent much time abroad, and studied under Carl Remigius Fresenius (Wiesbaden), Walther Nernst (University of Göttingen), Küster (Clausthal University of Technology), Albin Haller (University of Paris, Sorbonne) and at the Institut Pasteur.
Throughout his career, he mostly published in German and French periodicals. He took the dr.philos. degree at the University of Leipzig in 1891, and was then hired as an associate professor at the University of Kristiania.
From 1910 he also worked at the Norwegian Military Academy, and from 1913 at the Norwegian Military College. He succeeded Thorstein Hiortdahl in the professor chair at the University of Kristiania in 1918.
From 1920 he also chaired the Norwegian Chemical Society.
He died in 1932.