Arvid Reuterdahl (February 15, 1876 – January 13, 1933) was a Swedish-American engineer, scientist and educator.

Biography

Reuterdahl was born at

Karlstad Karlstad (, ) is the 20th-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Karlstad Municipality, the capital of Värmland County, and the largest city in the province Värmland in Sweden. The city proper had 65,856 inhabitants in 2020 with 95,167 inhabitants ...

on February 15, 1876.''The National Cyclopædia of American Biography''
New York: James T. White & Company, 1927. pp. 468-469 He moved to the United States as a child in 1882. He graduated Sc.B. from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1897 and was a mathematics and physics instructor at the Technical High School in Providence. Reuterdahl worked as an engineer in

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Canada ...

for five years and as an assistant city engineer, water commissioner and President of the board of public works. He designed bridges for the city. He was an consulting engineer of Boise, Idaho (1910–1913) and

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City (abbreviated KC or KCMO) is the largest city in Missouri by population and area. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 508,090 in 2020, making it the 36th most-populous city in the United States. It is the central ...

(1913–1918). He was professor of theoretical and applied mechanics at Kansas City Polytechnic Institute (1915–1918) and was the first Dean of the Department of Engineering and Architecture at the

College of St. Thomas A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a University system, constituent part of one. A college may be a academic degree, degree-awarding Tertiary education, tertiary educational institution, a part of a coll ...

(1918–1922). He was President of the Ramsey Institute of Technology,

Saint Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County, Minnesota, Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississip ...

(1922-1926). He was a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

. He married Elinor Morrison on June 16, 1902. They had one son, Norman Morrison Reuterdahl.

Opposition to the theory of relativity

Reuterdahl was a noted opponent of Albert Einstein's

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 ...

.Wazeck, Milena. (2014). ''Einstein's Opponents: The Public Controversy about the Theory of Relativity in the 1920s''. Cambridge University Press. pp. 171-173. He considered Einstein's theory to be largely "bunk" and accused him of plagiarism. Reuterdahl argued that Einstein's theory of relativity was plagiarized from a mechanical gravitation theory of Scottish engineer Robert Stevenson (pseudonym Kinertia). He argued that Stevenson's papers were sent to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1903 and that Einstein, a member of the Academy secretly made use of the papers. Reuterdahl communicated with other anti-relativists such as

Ernst Gehrcke Ernst J. L. Gehrcke (1 July 1878 in Berlin – 25 January 1960 in Hohen-Neuendorf) was a German experimental physicist. He was director of the optical department at the Reich Physical and Technical Institute. Concurrently, he was a professor at the ...

.Rowe, David E. (2018). ''A Richer Picture of Mathematics: The Göttingen Tradition and Beyond''. Springer. p. 260. He was science editor for

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that mi ...

's journal the ''

Dearborn Independent ''The Dearborn Independent'', also known as ''The Ford International Weekly'', was a weekly newspaper established in 1901, and published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. The paper reached a circulation of 900,000 by 1925, second only to the ...

''.

Selected publications

*''Scientific Theism Versus Materialism: The Space-time Potential'' (1920) *''Einstein and the New Science'' (1921)
''"Kinertia" Versus Einstein''
(1921) *''A Synthesis of Number, Space-Time and Energy'' (1923)
''The God of Science''
(1928)
''Einsteinism: Its Fallacies and Frauds''
(1931)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reuterdahl, Arvid 1876 births 1933 deaths 20th-century American engineers Brown University alumni Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science People from Karlstad Relativity critics Swedish emigrants to the United States University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) faculty