Gunnar Nordström

Gunnar Nordström
Nordström at the age of 35
Born	12 March 1881 Helsinki, Finland
Died	24 December 1923(1923-12-24) (aged 42) Helsinki, Finland
Residence	Finland, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands
Citizenship	Russian, Finnish
Nationality	Finnish
Fields	Physics, Mechanics
Institutions	Helsinki University of Technology University of Helsinki University of Göttingen University of Leiden
Alma mater	Helsinki University of Technology (Engineer), University of Helsinki (Master of Science, and PhD)
Academic advisors	Paul Ehrenfest, Walther Nernst (briefly)
Known for	Nordström's theory of gravitation Kaluza–Klein theory Reissner–Nordström metric
Influences	Albert Einstein
Influenced	Albert Einstein, Rolf Nevanlinna

Gunnar Nordström (12 March 1881 – 24 December 1923) was a Finnish theoretical physicist best remembered for his theory of gravitation, which was an early competitor of general relativity. Nordström is often designated by modern writers as The Einstein of Finland due to his novel work in similar fields with similar methods to Einstein.

Nordström graduated high-school from Brobergska Skolan in central Helsinki 1899. At first he went on to study mechanical engineering at the Polytechnic institute in Helsinki, later renamed Helsinki University of Technology and today a part of the Aalto University. During his studies he developed an interest for more theoretical subjects, proceeding after graduation to further study for a master's degree in natural science, mathematics and economy at the University of Helsinki (1903–1907).

Nordström then moved to Göttingen, Germany, where he had been recommended to go to study physical chemistry. However, he soon lost interest in the intended field and moved to study electrodynamics, a field the University of Göttingen was renowned for at the time. He returned to Finland to complete his doctoral dissertation at the University of Helsinki in 1910, and become a docent at the university. Subsequently, he became fascinated with the very novel and soon burgeoning field of gravitation and wanted to move to the Netherlands where scientists with contributions to that fields such as Hendrik Lorentz, Paul Ehrenfest and Willem de Sitter were active. Nordström was able to move to Leiden in 1916 to work under Ehrenfest, in the midst of the First World War, due to his Russian passport. Nordström spent considerable time in Leiden where he met a Dutch physics student, Cornelia van Leeuwen, with whom he went on to have several children. After the war he declined a professorship at the University of Berlin, a post awarded instead to Max Born, in order to return to Finland in 1918 and hold at first the professorship of physics and later the professorship of mechanics at the Helsinki University of Technology.