Carl-Gunne Fälthammar (4 December 1931 – 22 September 2022) was a Swedish electrical engineer and physicist who was Professor Emeritus of electrical engineering at the

Royal Institute of Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology (), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technology and is Sweden's largest technical university. Since 2018, KTH consist ...

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

, specialising in space and plasma physics. He succeeded

Hannes Alfvén Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (; 30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now ...

as Professor of Plasma Physics in 1975. His research interests included plasma electrodynamics, with application to space and astrophysical plasmas, especially in the context of

aurora An aurora ( aurorae or auroras), also commonly known as the northern lights (aurora borealis) or southern lights (aurora australis), is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly observed in high-latitude regions (around the Arc ...

l and magnetospheric physics. He was also the Associate Editor of the journa
Astrophysics and Space Science

Early life and education

Carl-Gunne Fälthammar was born in

Markaryd Markaryd () is a locality and the seat of Markaryd Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden with 3,966 inhabitants in 2010. International relations Twin towns — Sister cities Markaryd is twinned with: * Bytów, Poland Poland, official ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

on 4 December 1931. In 1956 he earned the Swedish equivalent to a master's degree (civilingenjör), and in 1960 the equivalent of a Ph.D. (Tekn. lic.), and in 1966 the position of

Docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

(approximately assistant professor), all from the

Career

From July 1967 until June 1997, Fälthammar headed the Division of Plasma Physics of the Alfvén Laboratory. In 1969, he became Associate Professor of Plasma Physics at the Royal Institute of Technology, and in 1975, succeeded

as Professor of Plasma Physics there.

Death

Fälthammar died on 22 September 2022, at the age of 90.

Awards

In 1989, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor's degree by the Faculty of Science of the

University of Oulu The University of Oulu () is one of the largest universities in Finland, located in the city of Oulu. It was founded on July 8, 1958. The university has around 14,200 students and 3,800 staff. 21 International Master's Programmes are offer ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. He is also a recipient of the Golden Badge Award of the

European Geophysical Society The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is a non-profit international union in the fields of Earth, planetary, and space sciences whose vision is to "realise a sustainable and just future for humanity and for the planet". The organisation has headq ...

and the Basic Sciences Award of the

International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is a Paris-based non-government association for the field of astronautics. It was founded in Stockholm, Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán. It was recognised by the United Nation ...

. In 1998 he was awarded the Hannes Alfvén Medal of the European Geophysical Society in recognition of his services as Editor of the Society’s journal ''Annales Geophysicae''.EGS Hannes Alfvén Medallist - 1998

Bibliography

Books

*
Magnetospheric Physics - Achievements and prospects
' (1993) co-authored with Bengt Hultqvist, Plenum Publ. Co. Ltd., London, UK, 1990, 190 pp., hard cover. $65.00/s. . * ''Cosmical electrodynamics: fundamental principles'' (1962) co-authored with Hannes Alfvén, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Papers

Papers
listed on the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Falthammar, Carl Gunne 1931 births 2022 deaths Academic staff of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology Swedish physicists People from Markaryd Municipality Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences