Allvar Gullstrand (5 June 1862 – 28 July 1930) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

ophthalmologist Ophthalmology ( ) is a surgery, surgical subspecialty within medicine that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of eye disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Followin ...

and optician.

Life

Born at

Landskrona Landskrona (old da, Landskrone) is a town in Scania, Sweden. Located on the shores of the Öresund, it occupies a natural port, which has lent the town at first military and subsequent commercial significance. Ferries operate from Landskrona t ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

, Gullstrand was professor (1894–1927) successively of eye therapy and of

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultraviole ...

at the

University of Uppsala Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. The university rose to significance during ...

. He applied the methods of physical mathematics to the study of optical images and of the refraction of light in the eye. For this work, he received the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

in 1911. Gullstrand is noted also for his research on

astigmatism Astigmatism is a type of refractive error due to rotational asymmetry in the eye's refractive power. This results in distorted or blurred vision at any distance. Other symptoms can include eyestrain, headaches, and trouble driving at n ...

and for improving the

ophthalmoscope Ophthalmoscopy, also called funduscopy, is a test that allows a health professional to see inside the fundus of the eye and other structures using an ophthalmoscope (or funduscope). It is done as part of an eye examination and may be done as part ...

and corrective lenses for use after removal of a

cataract A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that leads to a decrease in vision. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colors, blurry or double vision, halos around light, trouble w ...

from the eye. He was elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

in 1905, and served on the Academy's Prize Committee for Physics. While serving on the committee, he used his position to block

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

from receiving a

Nobel Prize in Physics ) , image = Nobel Prize.png , alt = A golden medallion with an embossed image of a bearded man facing left in profile. To the left of the man is the text "ALFR•" then "NOBEL", and on the right, the text (smaller) "NAT•" then " ...

for his

theory of relativity The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...

, which Allvar believed to be wrong. Gullstrand married Signe Breitholtz (1862–1946) in 1885. Due to the mathematical content of Gullstand's writing,

Horatio Burt Williams Horatio Burt Williams (September 17, 1877 to November 1, 1955) was an American clinical electrophysiologist. Life Williams was born on September 17, 1877, in Utica, New York. For college studies Williams chose physics. He went to Syracuse Unive ...

lamented in 1926 that "there are few ophthalmologists and not many physiologists who are able to read ullstrand's papersand for the same reason that the chemists of Gibbs' day were unable to read his work."

(1927
Mathematics and the Biological Sciences

Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society The ''Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society'' is a quarterly mathematical journal published by the American Mathematical Society. Scope It publishes surveys on contemporary research topics, written at a level accessible to non-experts. I ...

33(3): 273–94 via

Project Euclid Project Euclid is a collaborative partnership between Cornell University Library and Duke University Press which seeks to advance scholarly communication in theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics through partnerships with independent an ...

, quote from page 278 Gullstrand died in Stockholm in 1930, where he was interred at

Norra begravningsplatsen Norra begravningsplatsen, literally "The Northern Cemetery" in Swedish, is a major cemetery of the Stockholm urban area, located in Solna Municipality. Inaugurated on 9 June 1827, it is the burial site for a number of Swedish notables. Nota ...

Works

* 1904: "Zur Kenntnis der Kreispunkte",

Acta Mathematica ''Acta Mathematica'' is a peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal covering research in all fields of mathematics. According to Cédric Villani, this journal is "considered by many to be the most prestigious of all mathematical research journ ...

29:59–100. * 1906: "Vie réelle optische Abbildung", ''Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar'' 41 * 1908: "Die optische Abbildung im heterogenen Medien und die Dioptrik der Kristal-linse des Menschen", ''Kungl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar'' 43 * 1905: "Über Astigmatismus, Koma und Aberration",

Annalen der Physik ''Annalen der Physik'' (English: ''Annals of Physics'') is one of the oldest scientific journals on physics; it has been published since 1799. The journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers on experimental, theoretical, applied, and mathe ...

,(4), 18: 941-973 * 1907: "Tatsachen und Fiktionen in der Lehre von der optischen Abbildung", ''Archiv für Optik'', vol.1 p. 2; * 1911
Speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1911
* 1919: "Preparation of non spherical surfaces for optical instruments", ''Kgl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar'', vol. 60: 155, abstracted in ''Zeitschrift für Instrumentenkunde'', vol. 41 (1921), pp. 123–25 * 1922: "Allgemeine Lösung des statischen Einkörperproblems in der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie", ''Arkiv för Matematik, Astronomi och Fysik'' 16(8):1–15

References

* including the Nobel Lecture December 11, 1911 ''How I Found the Mechanism of Intracapsular Accommodation'' *

Maximilian Herzberger Maximilian Jacob Herzberger (7 or 17 Mar 1899, Berlin, Germany — 9 Apr 1982, New Orleans, United States)Journal of Modern Optics The ''Journal of Modern Optics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established as ''Optica Acta'' in 1954. It obtained its current name in 1987 and is published by Taylor & Francis with 21 issues per year. The journal covers most branc ...

7:237–41. * Ian R. Porteous (2001) ''Geometric Differentiation'', pp 201,205,271,285,

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press A university press is an academic publishing hou ...

. * Frank Tsai (2009
Who was Allvar Gullstrand
from ''Pearls in Ophthalmology''.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gullstrand, Allvar 1862 births 1930 deaths People from Landskrona Municipality Swedish ophthalmologists Swedish Nobel laureates Opticians Uppsala University alumni Uppsala University faculty Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine 19th-century Swedish physicians 20th-century Swedish physicians Burials at Norra begravningsplatsen Optical physicists 19th century in Skåne County

Life

Works

See also

References

External links