Karl Grandin

Karl Grandin (b. 1965) has been working at the Center since 1999 and since 2008 he is the Director of and Professor at the Center for History of Science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

He holds a MSc in engineering physics and a PhD in history of science and ideas from Uppsala University. His research has mainly dealt with the history of modern physics. He has a lot of experience of international collaborations, especially dealing with scientific heritage and from digitizing projects.

He is member of several learned societies. He is on the boards of the Swedish Linnaeus Society, the Gripsholm Society, the Swedish Berzelius Society, the Sven Hedin’s Foundation and was a member of the Swedish National Committee for History of Science and Technology, 2011–2017. He is also on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Niels Bohr Archive and since 2017 he chairs the History of Physics Group of the European Physical Society and from 2019 he chairs the Historic Sites committee of the European Physical Society. He is the editor of the Nobel Foundation yearbook since 2006. Since 2011 he is entrusted with the Nobel Diplomas and Nobel Medals during the awarding ceremony in Stockholm.

2010-03-31 Stockholm, Sweden. KVA högtidsdagen 2010, Konserthuset Stockholm. Foto: Markus Marcetic

Selected books

  • Kunskap i rörelse: Kungl. Vetenskapsakademien och skapandet av det moderna samhället (Stockholm, 2018), eds. Johan Kärnfelt, Karl Grandin & Solveig Jülich. also in English as Knowledge in Motion: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Making of Modern Society.
  • Understanding Field Science Institutions (Sagamore Beach, MA, 2018), eds. Helena Ekerholm, Karl Grandin, Christer Nordlund & Patience A. Schell.
  • Kungl. Vetenskapsakademiens Porträttsamling (Stockholm, 2015), eds. Görel Cavalli-Björkman & Karl Grandin.
  • Emanuel Swedenborg – Exploring a “World memory”: 
Context, Content, Contribution, ed. Karl Grandin (2013).
  • A Wireless World: One Hundred Years since the Nobel Prize to Guglielmo Marconi, eds. Karl Grandin, Piero Mazzinghi, Nils Olander & Giuseppe Pelosi (Florens: Firenze University Press, 2012).
  • Going Digital: Evolutionary and Revolutionary Aspects of Digitization, ed. Karl Grandin (Stockholm, 2011).
  • Aurora Torealis: Studies in the History of Science and Ideas in Honor of Tore Frängsmyr, eds. Marco Beretta, Karl Grandin & Svante Lindqvist (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications/USA, 2008).
  • Carl Peter Thunberg: Speech on the Japanese Nation, ed. Karl Grandin (Stockholm, 2007).
  • The Science–Industry Nexus: History Policy Implications, eds. Karl Grandin, Sven Widmalm & Nina Wormbs (Canton, MA., 2004).
  • A Galvanized Network: Italian-Swedish Scientific relations from Galvani to Nobel, eds. Marco Beretta & Karl Grandin (Stockholm, 2001).
  • Ett slags modernism i vetenskapen: Teoretisk fysik i Sverige under 1920-talet (Uppsala: Inst. för idé- och lärdomshistoria, 1999; 2 ed. 2000), diss.

Selected papers

  • “The Difficult Task to Award Einstein a Nobel Prize,” Il Nuovo Saggiatore 37:1–2 (2021), 7–16.
  • “Marie Skłodowska Curie – between physics and chemistry and two Nobel Prizes,” Historia Scientiarum, vol. 30–1 (2020), 3–18.
  • “The Nobel Prize to Enrico Fermi,” Il Colle di Galileo, (2020), 55–71.
  • “‘I shall always follow your progress with warm interest’: Niels Bohr’ as seen from a Swedish perspective until 1930,” One hundred years of the Bohr atom: Proceedings from a conference: Scientia Danica. Series M· Mathematica et physica. eds. Finn Aaserud & Helge Kragh (Copenhagen 2015), 522–546.
  • “The Nobel Prize in 1909: The Awarding Process,” A Wireless World, 78–91.
  • “Emanuel Swedenborgs arkiv,” En introduktion till Memory of the World – Världsminnesprogrammet, 1/2012 Svenska Unescorådets årsbok 2011 (Stockholm, 2012), 64–71.
  • “Scientific instruments,” The Linnaeus Apostels – Global Science and Adventure, vol. I, kap. 11, ed. Lars Hansen (London & Whitby, 2011), 279–306. (with A. Eriksson).
  • “Nuclear Energy,” Ambio 39 (2010), 26–30. (with Peter Jagers & Sven Kullander).
  • “The rise and fall of the Berzelius Museum,” Spaces and Collections in the History of Science: The Laboratorio Chimico Overture, eds. M.C. Lourenço & A. Caneiro (Lissabon, 2009), 209–215.
  • “An extensive and laborious task: How the Nobel Laureates are chosen,” The Nobel Prize Guide, 2009, 11–14.
  • “Intermediate theoretical physics,” Aurora Torealis, 193–214.
  • “[Tage Erlander och Torsten Gustafson: Forskningspolitik under tre decennier],” När Tage Erlander styrde landet: Rapport från ett seminarium i Riksdagshuset 19 september 2001, ed. Leif Andersson (Stockholm, 2002), 128–137.
  • “Daedalus och Icarus: Om vetenskapen och framtiden,” Teknikens lanskap, eds. Marika Hedin & Ulf Larsson (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1998), 179–198.
  • “Evaluation of correction factors for transmittance measurements in single beam integrating spheres,” Applied Optics, 33:25 (1994), 6098–6104 (with A. Roos)