Jaan Kalviste
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jaan Kalviste | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Jaan Kranig 3 April 1898 |
| Died | 15 June 1936 (aged 38) |
| Resting place | Rahumäe cemetery |
| Alma mater | |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Institutions |
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| Thesis | Contribution to the Development of Complexes of Oxalics and Carbonics in Trivalent Cobalt (1929) |
Jaan Kalviste (3 April 1898 – 15 June 1936)[1] was an Estonian chemist, mineralogist, educator, and translator.
Jaan Kalviste was born Jaan Kranig on Mikko farm in the small village of Läste in present-day Lääne-Viru County to railway worker Ado Kranig and his wife Kadri (née Kuulmata). He was the second eldest of five siblings.[2] He attended primary school in rural Lehtse Parish before studying at secondary school in Tallinn.[2]
During World War I he was conscripted and served a year in the Imperial Russian Army, then enlisted in the Estonian Land Forces at age twenty and fought in the Estonian War of Independence.[3][1]
Education
Following the end of the war, he enrolled at the University of Tartu in 1920; graduating with a master's degree in chemistry in 1925 with the thesis Investigation of Alkyl Carbonate Constants. Kalviste was a founding member of Students' Society Raimla (Üliõpilaste Selts Raimla, or ÜS Raimla).[2][4]
In 1926 he relocated to France as a scholarship holder and received his Doctor of Science degree from the University of Paris in 1929 following the publication of his thesis Contribution to the Development of Complexes of Oxalics and Carbonics in Trivalent Cobalt by Masson publishing house.[5][6]
Work
Kalviste returned to Estonia in 1929 and taught chemistry and mineralogy at the University of Tartu as a docent until 1933. From 1933, he worked as a senior chemist at the Kohtla-Järve Oil Manufactory where he experimented with the study of oil shale products (phenols, gasoline, etc.) using spectrometric methods and in photochemistry.[2] In 1935, he changed his surname from Kranig to Kalviste.[7] In 1936, he worked as a chemist of the State Oil Shale Industry Laboratory and concurrently as a teacher at the Virumaa Mining School in Jõhvi.[1]
Fluent in several languages, Jaan Kalviste translated mathematician Henri Poincaré's 1902 book Science and Hypothesis from French into Estonian (Teadus ja hüpotees) in 1936.[8]
