The Northern Lights, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Praise
Acknowledgments
Illustrations
Author’s Note
PART I - Aurora Borealis
1 - Odin’s Messengers
2 - Land of the Lapps
3 - The Castle
4 - A Warning
5 - “Riddle Solved!”
6 - The Cannon
7 - Mad Dogs
PART II - The Terrella
8 - Explosion!
9 - The Furnace
10 - Ida
11 - Looking Back from Space
12 - The Divine Option
13 - Vast, Infinite Space
PART III - Zodiacal Light
14 - The Dusty Disc
15 - War
16 - Letters from Home
17 - Brittle Remains
Epilogue
Select Bibliography
About the Author
Copyright Page
For Lily
International acclaim for Lucy Jago’s
The Nortern Lights
“Provocative, entertaining. . . . Jago is a taut, imaginative writer.” —The Times Literary Supplement
“An enlightening history [and] a nuanced portrait.” — Boston Herald
“A superior example . . . of the marriage of popular science and human interest. . . . Jago brings to life not just the tragic, likeable figure of Birkeland, a manic-depressive genius, but also the romance of his scientific endeavor and its groundbreaking conclusions. . . . A wonderful true story.” — Vogue
“A perfectly quaffable winter tale of ice and light.” —The Times (London)
“A highly compelling story that keeps the reader interested, and also learning, as the tale unfolds. . . . Jago tells the tale with a well-judged balance between the scientific background to [Birkeland’s] life, the excitement of carrying out his projects and his experience of life as a human being. This book is a carefully crafted biography and a very good read.” —Physics World
“Gripping.” —The Washington Post
“Fascinating and well written. . . . The subtle achievement of an empathetic writer.” —The Guardian
Acknowledgments
THE GENEROSITY of many individuals in helping with the research for this book has been extraordinary. First and foremost, my thanks go to Truls Lynne Hansen at the Auroral Observatory in Tromsø, Northern Norway, who, as he put it, has been my “Norwegian eyes and ears,” helping me find and translate documents from all the major archives in Norway and many minor ones as well. He was a constant reference point when I was trying to understand some of the more complicated scientific elements in Birkeland’s work and has enabled me to enjoy many memorable sightings of the aurora. Concerning the science, I would also like to thank Stanley Cowley, professor of solar-planetary physics and head of the Radio and Space Plasma Group at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, and Dr. Robert H. Eather, author of Majestic Lights: The Aurora in Science, History, and the Arts (1980), both of whom are eminent experts in the field of auroral physics and have kindly given their time and knowledge in offering suggestions for this book.
Many other people have also helped my research and I am grateful to them all. In Norway, in no particular order, they are Åse Lauritzen of Oslo University, who has written her thesis on Birkeland’s technology and has been very helpful in providing me with information about the Norsk Hydro period and in general research; Ketil Gjølme Andersen, who has written extensively on Norsk Hydro during Birkeland’s time; Professor Asgeir Brekke, with whom I shared a memorable skimobile journey up Haldde Mountain and who was generous in lending me books; Terje Brundtland, formerly of the Auroral Observatory and now at Oxford University and a leading expert in Birkeland’s terrella experiments; Solveig Berg, librarian at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo; Professor Alv Egeland, formerly of the physics department of Oslo University; Professor Egil Leer of the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo, for an inspirational discussion; Robert Marc Friedman, Institute of History, Oslo University, for his essay on Birkeland as a space pioneer; Mr. Søren Sem, formerly a director of Norsk Hydro, who very kindly allowed me access to Hydro’s archives and gave me a guided tour of the hydroelectric plants, factories, and museum at Notodden; Ragnar Moen who helped with research in the Notodden archives; Hans Thorleif Lundeby, grandnephew of Ida Birkeland, and his wife, Bjørg Lundeby, in Raade, who lent me photographs and provided important biographical detail; and Destinasjon Alta Tourism Group, which arranged for me to visit Birkeland’s observatory in midwinter. I would also like to thank the helpful staff at the Riksarkivet, Oslo (National Archives), Statsarkivet i Oslo (State Archives, Oslo), Statsarkiveti Tromsø (State Archives, Tromsø), Nasjonalbiblioteket i Oslo Håndskriftsamlingen (National Library of Norway Manuscript Department), the Astrophysics Institute Library, Norsk Teknisk Museum (Norwegian Technical Museum), the University Library of Tromsø, Bredriftshistorisksamling, Norsk Hydro, Notodden (Industry Museum), the Tromsø Auroral Observatory Library, and the departments of physics at the Universities of Tromsø and Oslo.
In England, Richard Dale, science executive producer at the BBC, offered me tremendous help and encouragement; the distinguished and lovely Professor Dungey; Dr. Peter Hingley from the Royal Astronomical Society in London, who helped in my search for information about Helwan Observatory in Egypt; Richard Wellm gave me extremely useful translations; staff at the Royal Society, the Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Rutherford-Appleton Laboratory, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Royal Institution, and the British Library provided valuable assistance.
In Egypt, eminent botanist Loutfy Boulos kindly arranged a trip into the desert to search for the Zodiacal Light; Professor Galal, formerly of the Helwan Observatory, and Professor Essa Ali, its current director, helped me find Birkeland’s house in Helwan and provided access to the observatory; thank you also to Iman Sayed of the Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan for her kindness and help with finding archives; Peter Knox-Shaw, son of Harold Knox-Shaw, for his great generosity and trust in lending me precious photographic plates of his father, the observatory, and Helwan in Birkeland’s time. My uncle and aunt, Peter and Hoda Jago, kindly arranged for me to be looked after in Egypt; Nehad Abd Elsalam was my cheerful guide; Mr. Samir Hares and El Said M. Hassanin were extremely generous with their hospitality during my research. The members of the Greek community in Alexandria could not have been more helpful in searching through numerous archives and libraries for biographical details of Hella Spandonides.
In America, thanks go to Professor Alex Dessler of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, for interesting articles and debates about the suppression of Birkeland’s work by Chapman; and Professor Anthony Perratt at Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico.
In Japan, Professor Fukushima drew attention to Terada’s account of Birkeland’s final weeks and, in conjunction with Professor Brekke in Norway, provided a translation from Japanese. Professor Ryochi Fuiji of Nagoya gave helpful information about Japanese archives.
The Pasteur Institute in France gave historical advice.
In Greece, Angelos Vryonis found valuable information about Hella Spandonides.
Stephanie Cabot, “agent extraordinaire” at William Morris UK, and Owen Laster in New York have done great deals, ably supported by Eugenie Furniss and Rhiannon Williams.
My editor and publisher, Simon Prosser, has steered me through the process of writing my first book with tremendous tact and encouragement, shaping The Northern Lights into something I am proud of. It has been a great pleasure to work with the team at Penguin—Charlie Greig, Joanna Prior, Carol Baker, John Bond, John Gray, Michele Hutchinson, Juliette Mitchell, the account managers, and the reps. Bela Cunha, the copy editor, corrected the manuscript with great skill. Robin Desser, editor for the American edition, has been hugely supportive and her assistant, Bonnie Schiff-Glenn, has made transatlantic communication enjoyable.
Lastly, but sincerely, thank you to my family and friends, who have been constant in their support and encouragement.
Lucy Jago
London, December 2000
Illustrations
Author’s Note
THE EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS in this story actually occurred and the characters involved existed, although in an attempt to prevent the book becoming an academic text or a standard biography, I have kept references to a minimum and there are no footnotes. Exhaustive research has been done into all available archives and resources concerning Birkeland, his contemporaries, and his environment in Norway, Britain, Egypt, Greece, and Japan. Most details that appear in the book, from the wallpaper used in the Haldde observatory to the number of servants Birkeland employed while working in Sudan, have come from written sources (mentioned in the Select Bibliography). Portraits of characters and descriptions of Christiania (Oslo), Cairo, Tokyo, and other towns come from photographs or written accounts contemporary with Birkeland. Very occasionally I have telescoped events in order to avoid making the story too long or have made assumptions that are not documented but are reasonable. I have visited most of the locations mentioned, several of which are little changed. Place names used in the book are those current in Birkeland’s time, and his scientific discoveries have been written from a perspective contemporary with him; the epilogue contains an assessment of Birkeland’s contribution to the field of auroral science in the light of the latest sc
PART I
Aurora Borealis
Kristian Birkeland with his three assistants—Riddervold, Koren, and Schaaning—and Samoyed guide at Litovsky’s Studio, Archangelsk, Russia, 1902. Copyright by the Norwegian Technical Museum, Oslo
1
Odin’s Messengers
14 October 1899
Finnmark, Northern Norway, within the Arctic Circle
It is true of the northern lights, as of many other things of which we have no sure knowledge, that thoughtful men will form opinions and conjectures about it and will make such guesses as seem reasonable. But these northern lights have this peculiar nature, that the darker the night is, the brighter they seem, and they always appear at night but never by day, and rarely by moonlight. They resemble a vast flame of fire viewed from a great distance. It also looks as if sharp points were shot from this flame up into the sky, they are of uneven height and in constant motion, now one, now another darting highest; and the light appears to blaze like a living flame . . .
KONGESPEILET (The King’s Mirror), c. 1220–30, Norse epic
IT WAS TEN in the morning and −25° Celsius when the group left the small mining town of Kaafjord for the summit of Haldde Mountain, Haldde being a Lappish word for “guardian spirit.” The cold should have scattered the clouds but halfway to the top the wind engulfed the men in blinding eddies of snow and ice. Their guide, Clement Isaakson Hætta, was a Lapp who had abandoned the traditional activity of herding reindeer to become the local postman serving the few Norwegians, Swedes, and immigrant workers from Finland, the Kvens, living in this northerly outpost. Short, with bandy legs, he bent his body at the hips into a right angle and pushed on through the storm like a swaying battering ram. Firmly wrapped around his wrist were the leather reins of the leading reindeer that was struggling to pull a sled piled high with a bizarre cargo of instrument boxes, trunks, and tripods. Seven reindeer, similarly yoked, were lashed behind the leader, and roped to them were five huddled figures.
Directly behind Hætta was the instigator of the expedition, Kristian Olaf Birkeland. He yelled to the guide above the screeching wind, wanting to know whether it was safe to continue. He could not hear the response, as the storm scrambled Hætta’s words and Birkeland was partly deaf from conducting noisy radio-wave experiments as a student. Festooned with reindeer skins, he appeared shorter than his five feet five inches. Only thirty-one years old, he was already balding across the dome of his fine-boned scalp. The snow stuck to his round spectacles but he had long given up scraping ice off the lenses and instead squinted between the rims and his fur hood. This unlikely adventurer had been made a professor of Norway’s only university one year previously. He was the youngest of his colleagues in the Faculty of Science and Mathematics, his prophetic genius as a scientist emerging in his twenties when he solved problems that had defeated some of the brightest minds in Europe. Despite his youth, Birkeland was not a fit man; he loathed physical hardship and was more accustomed to long hours in the laboratory, hunched over diagrams and experiments. It was a comment on his devotion to scientific discovery that he was stranded on a mountain in eighty-kilometer-an-hour winds that howled continuously.
The storm was worsening; the men had been walking for six hours and had covered a distance that would take only two in good conditions. The guide shuffled onward, chewing on black tobacco, damp wads of which he spat into the wind. To reach the summit of the mountain, and the hut that would provide them with shelter, it was necessary to leave the narrow plateau they were traversing and climb the exposed mountainside. The peak they were heading toward was engulfed in a mass of swirling snow and ice as dense as black smoke.
Roped behind a breathless Birkeland came Bjørn Helland-Hansen, a gifted student in the medical department of Christiania University who was training to be a surgeon. Talented in science as well as medicine, he had attended Birkeland’s lecture course and been inspired to join him on this adventure. He had just celebrated his twenty-second birthday. Tied to him was Elisar Boye, a Latin scholar who had been the first to volunteer for the expedition, presenting himself just a few hours after Birkeland posted a notice on the boards in the main hall of the university, requesting strong and able science students for a unique expedition to the Arctic Circle. At first Birkeland had thought that a Latin graduate would be of little use to him on a scientific mission, but Boye explained that he had achieved the best mark possible in mathematics, and eventually Birkeland relented in the face of the young man’s enthusiasm. Boye looked much younger than his twenty-two years, with a smooth, pale complexion and clear blue eyes, on this day hidden inside his reindeer hood. He had stopped trying to see where he was going through the lashing snow and simply followed the direction of the tugging rope. Behind Boye came Kristoffer Knudsen, a twenty-three-year-old telegraphic engineer who had been working for the Norwegian railway until Birkeland lured him away with promises of adventure and pioneering science. He did not know the other members of the group and was the quietest when they began the ascent. As the storm intensified, he retreated ever further into his jacket and squinted at the ground immediately before his feet through the hairs of his hood. The tallest in the party, Sem Sæland, brought up the rear. Just turned twenty-five, Sæland had studied mathematics, astronomy, physics, and chemistry at the university, then traveled to Iceland, where he spent a year teaching before returning to Christiania University for further studies. There he met Birkeland, and was so interested in the professor’s ideas that he had volunteered to join him on his expedition. Sæland repeatedly checked the knot in the rope linking him to the others as the driving snow was so thick he could see no more than a few centimeters beyond his nose.
By four o’clock the light was fading. Hætta decided that they should turn round and head back down the mountain, but then immediately changed his mind, suggesting they continue to the hut as it could not be more than two kilometers away and it would be more difficult to go down than up. He cajoled and harried the reindeer, which would not face the wind and nervously shook their heads at the sharp points of ice pricking their eyes and noses. It was impossible to sit in the sleds as they lay so close to the ground that the men were pelted with ice and small stones. Soon some of the reindeer lay down flat and refused to move. Hætta, a large part of his face white with frostbite, followed their lead and threw himself onto his sled, declaring he could go no further and could not find the way forward. He told Birkeland to continue without him, keeping the wind in his face, but the professor knew that abandoning their guide would be a fatal mistake and told the group to make camp as best they could. Hætta crawled under his sled while the others dragged the remaining sleds and baggage to form a barricade, behind which they erected a low tent. They struggled into their reindeer sleeping bags with all possible haste while Helland-Hansen weighed down the guy ropes with boxes and trunks. By the time he entered the tent less than five minutes later, the tips of his fingers had turned white with frostbite.
For twenty hours the five men lay in the cramped tent. They rubbed Helland-Hansen’s fingers every quarter of an hour in an attempt to bring them back to life, and almost as regularly one of the five men had to push snow from the roof of the tent to prevent the suffocation of all those inside. Wherever there was a little shelter the snow heaped into thick, compact drifts that would trap them in a freezing vise if allowed to settle. They had nothing to drink or warm themselves with, having been assured by Hætta that the ascent was a matter of six hours’ gentle climbing with a short, steep section at the summit. Birkeland had half a loaf of bread in his jacket that he tossed to Hansen in the darkness, hoping some food might distract him from the pain in his hands, but the noise of the wind was so great that he did not hear Birkeland yelling to him to eat the bread, and it froze to the consistency of rock within a few minutes. Gradually the little light that glowed through the snowfilled air was extinguished by the black night that fell by five o’clock. Inside the tent Birkeland was painfully aware that only a thin strip of canvas trembled between them and the lethal storm outside; one fierce gust and it could be ripped off. Without the tent they would be unlikely to survive.
