Sten von Friesen (March 18, 1907, Uppsala; September 9, 1996) was a Swedish physicist who was most known for having participated in the Swedish hit show Fråga Lund.

Biography

Sten von Friesen was born in

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the c ...

in 1907, and his father was the Swedish

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Otto von Friesen. He was awarded his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 1935 at

Uppsala University 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 ...

for his research led by

Manne Siegbahn Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn FRS(For) HFRSE (3 December 1886 – 26 September 1978) was a Swedish physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1924 "for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy". Biography Siegbahn ...

on the measurement of

wavelength In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, t ...

s in the elements

X-ray spectrum X-ray spectroscopy is a general term for several spectroscopic techniques for characterization of materials by using x-ray radiation. Characteristic X-ray spectroscopy When an electron from the inner shell of an atom is excited by the energy o ...

. von Friesen moved to the newly established Nobel Institute for Physics in Stockholm in 1937 along Siegbahn. Together they started the construction of Sweden's first

cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...

, but von Friesen was mobilized at the Finnish border after the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

shortly after the completion of the cyclotron. von Friesen became a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

at the Department of Physics at Lund University in 1948, and held the post until his retirement in 1972 when was succeeded by Hans Ryde. As a professor he continued his research on nuclear physics, and he was in charge when Lund University received its first

particle accelerator A particle accelerator is a machine that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to very high speeds and energies, and to contain them in well-defined beams. Large accelerators are used for fundamental research in particle ...

. One of the highlights of his research happened when he and his team could show that the presence of elements in the

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. ...

is the same as it is in the distant galaxies. For a wider public, he became known through his participation in the TV program Fråga Lund in the 1960s and 1970s, where he was one of six scientists in the

Panel Panel may refer to: Arts and media Visual arts * Panel (comics), a single image in a comic book, comic strip or cartoon; also, a comic strip containing one such image *Panel painting, in art, either one element of a multi-element piece of art ...

who answered questions from the audience. In addition, he became a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1964. He is buried at Uppsala Old Cemetery in the same tomb as the father.

References

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Sten von Friesen on 22 October 1971, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Friesen, Sten von 1907 births 1996 deaths Swedish physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences