Muuan nuori suomalainen – Yrjö Kauko Fritz Haberin assistenttina

aloittelevan tiedemiehen kokemuksia 1900-luvun alun Saksassa

Authors

• Riitta Mattila

Abstract

"A certain young Finn": The experiences of an emerging Finnish scientist in the early 20th-century Germany

Yrjö Kauko (1886–1974) was born in a modest peasant family in Eastern Finland. However, his ambitious parents wanted to give a proper education to their only son. Kauko graduated from the Helsinki University of Technology in 1909 and continued immediately his studies at the University of Karlsruhe. After having successfully completed his doctoral thesis, he worked as professor Fritz Haber’s personal assistant, first in Karslruhe and then in Berlin at Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry. In the University of Berlin he also attended lectures of the most prominent scientists of the time, Max Planck and Albert Einstein. Yrjö Kauko was very impressed by the strong personality of Fritz Haber. After Haber’s death in 1934, he wrote a highly admiring necrology of his teacher, who had influenced his attitudes to science and teaching.