1.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
2.
Stockholm
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The city is spread across 14 islands on the coast in the southeast of Sweden at the mouth of Lake Mälaren, by the Stockholm archipelago and the Baltic Sea. The area has settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC. It is also the capital of Stockholm County, Stockholm is the cultural, media, political, and economic centre of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the countrys GDP and it is an important global city, and the main centre for corporate headquarters in the Nordic region. The city is home to some of Europes top ranking universities, such as the Stockholm School of Economics, Karolinska Institute and it hosts the annual Nobel Prize ceremonies and banquet at the Stockholm Concert Hall and Stockholm City Hall. One of the citys most prized museums, the Vasa Museum, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. The Stockholm metro, opened in 1950, is known for its decoration of the stations. Swedens national football arena is located north of the city centre, Ericsson Globe, the national indoor arena, is in the southern part of the city. The city was the host of the 1912 Summer Olympics, and hosted the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics otherwise held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Stockholm is the seat of the Swedish government and most of its agencies, including the highest courts in the judiciary, and the official residencies of the Swedish monarch and the Prime Minister. The government has its seat in the Rosenbad building, the Riksdag is seated in the Parliament House, and the Prime Ministers residence is adjacent at the Sager House. After the Ice Age, around 8,000 BCE, there were already a number of people living in the present-day Stockholm area. Thousands of years later, as the ground thawed, the climate became tolerable, at the intersection of the Baltic Sea and lake Mälaren is an archipelago site where the Old Town of Stockholm was first built from about 1000 CE by Vikings. They had a positive impact on the area because of the trade routes they created. Stockholms location appears in Norse sagas as Agnafit, and in Heimskringla in connection with the legendary king Agne, the earliest written mention of the name Stockholm dates from 1252, by which time the mines in Bergslagen made it an important site in the iron trade. The first part of the name means log in Swedish, although it may also be connected to an old German word meaning fortification, the second part of the name means islet, and is thought to refer to the islet Helgeandsholmen in central Stockholm. Stockholms core, the present Old Town was built on the island next to Helgeandsholmen from the mid 13th century onward. The city originally rose to prominence as a result of the Baltic trade of the Hanseatic League, Stockholm developed strong economic and cultural linkages with Lübeck, Hamburg, Gdańsk, Visby, Reval, and Riga during this time
3.
Swedes
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Swedes are a Germanic ethnic group native to Sweden. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, in particular Finland, with a substantial diaspora in other countries, the English term Swede has been attested in English since the late 16th century and is of Middle Dutch or Middle Low German origin. The term is believed to have derived from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronominal root, *se. The word must have meant ones own, the same root and original meaning is found in the ethnonym of the Germanic tribe Suebi, preserved to this day in the name Swabia. Sweden enters proto-history with the Germania of Tacitus in AD98, in Germania 44,45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow in both ends. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC. In the 6th century Jordanes named two tribes, which he calls the Suehans and the Suetidi, who lived in Scandza and these two names are both considered to refer to the same tribe. The Suehans, he says, has very fine horses just as the Thyringi tribe, the Icelander Snorri Sturluson wrote of the 6th-century Swedish king Adils that he had the finest horses of his days. The Suehans supplied black fox-skins for the Roman market, then Jordanes names the Suetidi which is considered to be the Latin form of Svitjod. He writes that the Suetidi are the tallest of men - together with the Dani, later he mentions other Scandinavian tribes as being of the same height. Originating in semi-legendary Scandza, a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the 2nd century AD and they reaching Scythia on the coast of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine, where Goths left their archaeological traces in the Chernyakhov culture. In the 5th and 6th centuries, they divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Crimean Gothic communities appear to have survived intact in the Crimea until the late 18th century, the Swedish Viking Age lasted roughly between the 8th and 11th centuries. During this period, it is believed that the Swedes expanded from eastern Sweden and it is believed that Swedish Vikings and Gutar mainly travelled east and south, going to Finland, the Baltic countries, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine the Black Sea and further as far as Baghdad. Their routes passed through the Dnieper down south to Constantinople, on which they did numerous raids, the Byzantine Emperor Theophilos noticed their great skills in war and invited them to serve as his personal bodyguard, known as the varangian guard. The Swedish Vikings, called Rus are also believed to be the fathers of Kievan Rus. The Arabic traveller Ibn Fadlan described these Vikings as following, I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys, each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. The swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish sort, the adventures of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece Runestones and the Varangian Runestones
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University of Lund
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Lund University is one of northern Europes oldest, largest and most prestigious universities, consistently ranking among the worlds top 100 universities. After Sweden won Scania from Denmark in the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde, the studium generale had not survived the Lutheran Reformation of 1536. The university founded in 1666 was thus a new institution. Lund University has eight faculties, with campuses in the cities of Malmö and Helsingborg. The University has some 600 partner universities in over 70 countries, the city of Lund has a long history as a center for learning and was the ecclesiastical centre and seat of the archbishop of Denmark. A cathedral school for the training of clergy was established in 1085 and is today Scandinavias oldest school, a studium generale was founded in 1425, and in 1438 education was started by the Franciscan order for a baccalaureus degree. The university was named Academia Carolina after Charles X Gustav of Sweden until the late 19th century and it was the fifth university under the Swedish king, after Uppsala University, the University of Tartu, the Academy of Åbo, and the University of Greifswald. The university was at its founding granted four faculties, law, theological, medicine and they were the cornerstones, and for more than 200 years this system was in effect. Towards the end of the 17th century, the number of students hovered around 100, some notable professors in the early days were Samuel Pufendorf, a juridical historian, and Canutus Hahn and Kristian Papke in philosophy. The Scanian War in 1676 led to a shut-down, which lasted until 1682, the university was re-opened largely due to regional patriots, but the university was not to enjoy a high status until well into the 19th century. Lecturing rooms were few, and lectures were held in the Lund Cathedral, in 1713, Charles XII of Sweden entered Lund. He stayed in Lund for three years, in between his warlike expeditions, Lund and the university attracted a temporary attention boost. The most notable lecturer during this time was Andreas Rydelius, peace was finally restored with the death of Charles XII in 1718, and during the first half of the 18th century the university was granted added funds. The number of students was now well around 500, despite not being on par with Uppsala University, it had still built a solid reputation and managed to attract prominent professors. Around 1760 the university reputation dropped as the number of students fell below 200, however, by 1780 its reputation was largely restored, and continued to rise through the 1820s. This was largely owing to popular and well-educated lecturers particularly in philology and he, in turn, attracted others towards Lund. One of these was the young theological student C. G. Brunius, with time he was to devote himself to architectures and he redesigned several of Lunds buildings, as well as churches of the province. In 1845 and 1862 Lund co-hosted Nordic student meetings together with the University of Copenhagen, a student called Elsa Collin was the first woman in the whole of Sweden to take part in a spex
5.
X-ray spectroscopy
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X-ray spectroscopy is a gathering name for several spectroscopic techniques for characterization of materials by using x-ray excitation. When an electron from the shell of an atom is excited by the energy of a photon. When it returns to the low level, the energy which it previously gained by the excitation is emitted as a photon which has a wavelength that is characteristic for the element. Analysis of the X-ray emission spectrum produces qualitative results about the composition of the specimen. Comparison of the spectrum with the spectra of samples of known composition produces quantitative results. Atoms can be excited by a beam of charged particles such as electrons, protons or a beam of X-rays. These methods enable elements from the periodic table to be analysed, with the exception of H, He. In an energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometer, a detector measures energy of incoming photons. To maintain detector integrity and resolution it should be cooled with liquid nitrogen or by Peltier cooling, EDS is widely employed in electron microscopes and in cheaper and/or portable XRF units. In a wavelength dispersive X-ray spectrometer the single crystal diffracts the photons which are collected by a detector, without any motion there will be just one wavelength detected. By moving crystal and detector, a region of spectrum is observed. In contrast to EDS, WDS method is a method of sequential spectrum acquisition, while WDS is slower than EDS and more sensitive to positioning specimen in the spectrometer, it has superior spectral resolution and sensitivity. William Lawrence Bragg and William Henry Bragg, son and father, jointly they measured the X-ray wavelengths of many elements to high precision, using high-energy electrons as excitation source. The cathode ray tube or a tube was the method used to pass electrons through a crystal of numerous elements. They also painstakingly produced numerous diamond-ruled glass diffraction gratings for their spectrometers, the law of diffraction of a crystal is called Braggs law in their honor. Intense and wavelength-tunable X-rays are now typically generated with synchrotrons, in a material, the X-rays may suffer an energy loss compared to the incoming beam. This energy loss of the beam reflects an internal excitation of the atomic system. In the X-ray region there is sufficient energy to probe changes in the electronic state, for instance, in the ultra soft X-ray region, crystal field excitations give rise to the energy loss
6.
Kai Siegbahn
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Kai Manne Börje Siegbahn was a Swedish physicist. Siegbahn was born in Lund, Sweden, son of Manne Siegbahn the 1924 physics Nobel Prize winner, Siegbahn earned his doctorate at the University of Stockholm in 1944. He was professor at the Royal Institute of Technology 1951–1954, and then professor of physics at Uppsala University 1954–1984. He shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics with Nicolaas Bloembergen, Siegbahn obtained the Nobel Prize for developing the method of Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis, now usually described as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. At the time of his death he was active as a scientist at the Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University. Kai Siegbahn was one of the editors of the Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry Kai M. Siegbahn – Curriculum Vitae at nobelprize. org Nobel Lecture
7.
Nobel Prize in Physics
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The Nobel Prize in Physics is a yearly award given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for those who conferred the most outstanding contributions for mankind in the field of physics. The first Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to German/Dutch physicist Wilhelm Röntgen in recognition of the services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays. This award is administered by the Nobel Foundation and widely regarded as the most prestigious award that a scientist can receive in physics and it is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobels death. Through 2016, a total of 203 individuals have been awarded the prize, only two women have won the Nobel Prize in Physics, Marie Curie in 1903, and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last one was written a year before he died and was signed at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895. Nobel bequeathed 94% of his assets,31 million Swedish kronor, to establish. Due to the level of surrounding the will, it was not until April 26,1897 that it was approved by the Storting. The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee who were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed, the Karolinska Institutet on June 7, the Swedish Academy on June 9, the Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundations newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II, according to Nobels will, The Royal Swedish Academy of sciences were to award the Prize in Physics. A maximum of three Nobel laureates and two different works may be selected for the Nobel Prize in Physics, compared with other Nobel Prizes, the nomination and selection process for the prize in Physics is long and rigorous. This is a key reason why it has grown in importance over the years to become the most important prize in Physics, the Nobel laureates are selected by the Nobel Committee for Physics, a Nobel Committee that consists of five members elected by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In the first stage begins in September, around 3,000 people – selected university professors, Nobel Laureates in Physics and Chemistry. The completed nomination forms arrive at the Nobel Committee no later than 31 January of the following year and these nominees are scrutinized and discussed by experts who narrow it to approximately fifteen names. The committee submits a report with recommendations on the candidates into the Academy. The Academy then makes the selection of the Laureates in Physics through a majority vote. The names of the nominees are never announced, and neither are they told that they have been considered for the prize. Nomination records are sealed for fifty years, while posthumous nominations are not permitted, awards can be made if the individual died in the months between the decision of the prize committee and the ceremony in December
