Vilho Väisälä

Vilho Väisälä, until 1906 Vilho Weisell, ( born September 28, 1889 in Kontiolahti, Finland, † August 12, 1969 in Helsinki) was a Finnish meteorologist and entrepreneur.

Life and work

He was (now part of Joensuu ) born the sixth of eight children of John Weisell, employee of a sawmill in Utra, and Emma Bridget Jääskeläinen. The father died in 1904, and the mother, who in 1906 assumed the Finnish spelling of the family name, the five still minor children moved on alone. Nevertheless, the three youngest, Vilho, Yrjö and Kalle, attend university and pursue an academic career.

Vilho Väisälä first attended the classical lyceum in Joensuu and studied from 1908 at the University of Helsinki mathematics, physics and astronomy. After completing his studies, he took a position at the Meteorological Institute in Helsinki. His task was to measure the Earth's magnetic field in different parts of Finland. 1916, the management of the aerological station dragon Ilmala he was given. Although he received his doctorate in 1917 on the field of mathematics ( at Ernst Lindelöf ), his devotion to meteorology was complete. In 1919 he was appointed director of the aerological Division of the Meteorological Institute. In 1920 he made ​​an extensive study tour that took him to the University of Göttingen, at that time the most modern aerological observatory in Lindenberg near Berlin and from Bergen in Norway to Vilhelm Bjerknes. In 1926 he became a lecturer at the University of Helsinki. The dragons station in Ilmala developed under Väisäläs line in a representative aero logical Observatory. He now also constructed meteorological instruments.

In March 1931 was one of the early radiosondes of the Soviet meteorologist Pavel Molchanov ( 1893-1941 ) in Finland down. Väisälä examined the device and decided to develop it further. Already on 30 December 1931 he made ​​the first successful launch of its own radiosonde. Until 1935 he perfected the instrument, before he presented it to colleagues. When he was a marketable product with the radiosonde "RS 11 " available in the spring of 1936, he founded the company Vilho Väisälä Oy. After the company had carried the name Mittari 1944 to 1955, she was finally renamed Vaisala.

From 1948 to 1956 Väisälä was a professor of meteorology at the University of Helsinki. Until his death in 1969 he remained President of Vaisala. At this time the company had already produced its 500,000 th radiosonde.

Vilho Väisälä was in 1912 married to Maria Aino Fredrika Blomqvist, with whom he had two children. After his wife died in 1954, he graduated in 1955, the marriage with Anna Maria Immonen.

Writings (selection )

• The atmospheric turbidity in the summer of 1912 in Finland, Suomalaisen Tiedeakatemian Kustantama, Helsinki 1918
• Aspirations and proposals for the development of radiometeorographischen Methods: A preliminary communication, Akad Buchh, Helsinki 1932.
• A new radiosonde, Akad Buchh. , Helsinki 1936
• Radiation effects Influencing temperature measurements by Means of radio sondes in the stratosphere, Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki 1967