Allvar Gullstrand

Allvar Gullstrand was a Swedish ophthalmologist and optician, born in Landskrona in 1862, who was professor at the University of Uppsala from 1894 to 1927, first of eye therapy and then of optics. He applied the methods of physical mathematics to optical images and to the refraction of light in the eye, and for this work he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1911. He is also noted for his research on astigmatism and for improving the ophthalmoscope and the corrective lenses used after cataract removal. A member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1905, he sat on its physics prize committee and in 1921 argued against awarding a prize for the theory of relativity. He died in Stockholm in 1930.