Olov Hilding Faxén (29 March 1892 – 1 June 1970) 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 ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

who was primarily active within

mechanics Mechanics (from Ancient Greek: μηχανική, ''mēkhanikḗ'', "of machines") is the area of mathematics and physics concerned with the relationships between force, matter, and motion among physical objects. Forces applied to objects r ...

. Faxén received his doctorate in 1921 at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in opera ...

with the thesis ''Einwirkung der Gefässwände auf den Widerstand gegen die Bewegung einer kleinen Kugel in einer zähen Flüssigkeit'' ("Influence of the container walls on the resistance against movement by a small ball in a viscous fluid"). One of his contributions was to formulate

Faxén's law In fluid dynamics, Faxén's laws relate a sphere's velocity \mathbf and angular velocity \mathbf to the forces, torque, stresslet and flow it experiences under low Reynolds number (creeping flow) conditions. First law Faxen's first law was introduc ...

, which is a correction to

Stokes' law In 1851, George Gabriel Stokes derived an expression, now known as Stokes' law, for the frictional force – also called drag force – exerted on spherical objects with very small Reynolds numbers in a viscous fluid. Stokes' law is derived by s ...

for the friction on spherical objects in a

viscous The viscosity of a fluid is a measure of its resistance to deformation at a given rate. For liquids, it corresponds to the informal concept of "thickness": for example, syrup has a higher viscosity than water. Viscosity quantifies the inter ...

fluid In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that continuously deforms (''flows'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are substances which cannot resist any shear ...

, valid in the case when the object moves close to a wall of the container. This was a problem previously treated by

Carl Wilhelm Oseen Carl Wilhelm Oseen (17 April 1879 in Lund – 7 November 1944 in Uppsala) was a theoretical physicist in Uppsala and Director of the Nobel Institute for Theoretical Physics in Stockholm. Life Oseen was born in Lund, and took a Fil. Kand. degre ...

(1910) and

Horace Lamb Sir Horace Lamb (27 November 1849 – 4 December 1934)R. B. Potts,, ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'', Volume 5, MUP, 1974, pp 54–55. Retrieved 5 Sep 2009 was a British applied mathematician and author of several influential texts on ...

(1911), but incompletely solved. After the death of

Ivar Fredholm Erik Ivar Fredholm (7 April 1866 – 17 August 1927) was a Swedish mathematician whose work on integral equations and operator theory foreshadowed the theory of Hilbert spaces. Biography Fredholm was born in Stockholm in 1866. He obtained his P ...

, Faxén temporarily upheld the chair in mathematical physics at

Stockholm University College Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, soci ...

, before Oskar Klein was made the new professor. Faxén then served as professor at

Chalmers Institute of Technology Chalmers University of Technology ( sv, Chalmers tekniska högskola, often shortened to Chalmers) is a Swedish university located in Gothenburg that conducts research and education in technology and natural sciences at a high international leve ...

, first in mathematics from 1930 and then in mechanics and mathematics 1934–1935. In 1935, Faxén was appointed professor of mechanics at the

Royal Institute of Technology The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolo ...

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

, where he remained until his retirement in 1958. Together with the

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

physicist Johan Holtsmark, Faxén published a work in 1927 about scattering of

electron The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have no kn ...

s in gases.H. Faxén und J.P. Holtsmark, ''Beitrag zur Theorie des Durchganges langsamer Elektronen durch Gase'', Zeitschrift für Physik 45, 307–324 (1927). Here they introduced a new, mathematical method based upon partial waves. This is now standard and described in almost every modern book on

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

. In 1948, Faxén 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 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faxen, Hilding Swedish physicists Uppsala University alumni Academic staff of Stockholm University Academic staff of the Chalmers University of Technology Academic staff of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1892 births 1970 deaths Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala