Selim_Lemström_by_Elsa_Fohström_-_Arppeanum_-_DSC05101

Karl Selim Lemström (17 November 1838 in

Ingå Ingå (; fi, Inkoo) is a municipality of Finland. Ingå is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Uusimaa region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population density ...

– 2 October 1904 in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the capital, primate, and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of . The city ...

), was a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

geophysicist.Lemström, Selim
Uppslagsverket Finland. Retrieved 2 October 2015. Lemström is best known on his research of

aurora borealis An aurora (plural: auroras or aurorae), also commonly known as the polar lights, is a natural light display in Earth's sky, predominantly seen in high-latitude regions (around the Arctic and Antarctic). Auroras display dynamic patterns of bri ...

. He had several expeditions in

Finnish Lapland Lapland ( fi, Lappi ; se, Lappi; smn, Laapi; sv, Lappland; la, Lapponia, links=no) is the largest and northernmost region of Finland. The 21 municipalities in the region cooperate in a Regional Council. Lapland borders the region of North O ...

and even tried to create an artificial northern lights in the laboratory.Brekke, Asgeir & Egeland, Alv: ″The Northern Light: From Mythology to Space Research″, p. 78–80. Springer, 2011.
Google Books
/ref> In 1870 Lemström studied the

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Interna ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and introduced the system to Finland. Since 1872 he was a professor in the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

. Lemström has been described as the "forgotten pioneer of northern light studies," and some of his experiments have been compared with the ones made by

Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
''

Spitsbergen on the

Svalbard Islands Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

, led by

Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (18 November 183212 August 1901) was a Finland-Swedish aristocrat, geologist, mineralogist and Arctic explorer. He was a member of the Fenno-Swedish Nordenskiöld family of scientists and held the title of a friher ...

. On the way to the Arctic, Lemström studied aurora borealis in

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies in Northern Norway. The municipality is the ...

and continued his observations in Svalbard. In Lapland Lemström took part at the first

International Polar Year The International Polar Years (IPY) are collaborative, international efforts with intensive research focus on the polar regions. Karl Weyprecht, an Austro-Hungarian naval officer, motivated the endeavor in 1875, but died before it first occurred ...

1882–1884 and found out that the phenomenon could not be caused by an electric current in the atmosphere. These

spectroscopic Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

analyses are considered as his greatest contribution to the aurora research. Some of Lemström's theories were later tested by the Norwegian scientist

Kristian Birkeland Kristian Olaf Bernhard Birkeland (13 December 1867 – 15 June 1917) was a Norwegian scientist. He is best remembered for his theories of atmospheric electric currents that elucidated the nature of the aurora borealis. In order to fund his res ...

.Egeland, Alv & Burke, William J.: ″Kristian Birkeland: The First Space Scientist″, p. 50–51. Springer, 2006.
Google Books
/ref>

References

1838 births 1903 deaths People from Ingå People from Uusimaa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Swedish-speaking Finns Geophysicists Academic staff of the University of Helsinki {{Finland-scientist-stub