Prof. KR. Birkeland

Abstract

WE regret to learn from the Morning Post that Prof. Kr. Birkeland, of Christiania, died in Tokyo on June i8. He was one of the few speculative physicists of the day the value of whose work would be generally admitted in commercial circles. He was the co-inventor with Mr. Sam Eyde of the Birkeland-Eyde direct process for the manufacture of calcium nitrate by the extraction of nitrogen from the atmosphere. In the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, May, 1912, Mr. E. Kilburn Scott records how, starting with a 25-h.p. experimental plant in 1903, the company controlling the Birkeland-Eyde patents had 200,000 h.p. at work in 1912, and was likely to add a further 300,000 h.p. before the end of 1916. This was by no means the only successful patent in which Prof. Birkeland was interested.