Life and Death
Birkeland was born in Christiania (Oslo today) to Reinart Birkeland and Ingeborg (née Ege) and wrote his first scientific paper at the age of 18.
Birkeland married Ida Charlotte Hammer in May 1905. They had no children and, due to Birkeland's preoccupation with his work, they divorced in 1911.
Suffering from severe paranoia due to his use of Veronal as a sleeping aid, he died under mysterious circumstances in his room in the Hotel Seiyoken in Tokyo while visiting colleagues at the University of Tokyo. A post-mortem revealed that Birkeland had taken 10g of veronal the night he died, instead of the 0.5g recommended. The time of death was estimated at 7am on 15 June 1917. Some authors have claimed that he committed suicide.
Read more about this topic: Kristian Birkeland
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