Tormod Ernst Dittmar Førland (6 June 1920 – 10 November 1995) was a Norwegian chemist, a researcher in inorganic and

physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistical mecha ...

, and professor at the

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology (Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was m ...

Personal life

Førland was born in

Høyland Høyland is a List of former municipalities of Norway, former municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The municipality was located at the innermost end of the Gandsfjorden in the western part of the present-day municipality of Sandnes. The munic ...

on 6 June 1920, a son of chemical engineer Tormod Reinert Førland and Berta Josefine Dittmar. In 1943 he married , a daughter of

Didrik Arup Seip Didrik Arup Seip (31 August 1884 – 3 May 1963) was a professor of North Germanic languages at the University of Oslo. He earned his doctorate ( dr.philos.) in 1916 and was appointed professor the same year, retiring in 1954. Together with Herman ...

Career

Førland graduated as chemical engineer from the

in 1946, and as dr. techn. in 1958. From 1947 to 1950 he attended universities in the United States, first the

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

and then

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

. He was appointed as docent at the Norwegian Institute of Technology from 1959, and as professor of

from 1963. His research interests included

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as wel ...

ion activity,

electrochemistry Electrochemistry is the branch of physical chemistry concerned with the relationship between electrical potential difference, as a measurable and quantitative phenomenon, and identifiable chemical change, with the potential difference as an outco ...

and irreversible

thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

. He was awarded the

Gunnerus Medal The Gunnerus Medal ( no, Gunnerusmedaljen) is a medal awarded by the learned society Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters. It was inaugurated in 1927, and named after Johan Ernst Gunnerus, founder of the learned society. Members of the l ...

in 1991.

Selected works

* (thesis) * * *

References

1920 births 1995 deaths People from Sandnes Norwegian chemists Norwegian Institute of Technology alumni Academic staff of the Norwegian Institute of Technology Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Norwegian expatriates in the United States {{Norway-academic-bio-stub