Gullstrand is noted also for his research onastigmatism[1] and for improving theophthalmoscope and corrective lenses for use after removal of acataract from the eye.
Gullstrand married Signe Breitholtz (1862–1946) in 1885.
He was elected a member of theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1905, and served on the Academy's Prize Committee for Physics. While serving on the committee in 1921, he used his position to blockAlbert Einstein, whose 14 nominations were far more than any other scientist, from receiving aNobel Prize in Physics for histheory of relativity, which Gullstrand believed to be wrong.[2] His fifty-page report stated, "Einstein's work is not useful enough for the human race...we should wait for measurable evidence.”[3] This was in conflict with earlier statements in the report, that the bending of light measured during a solar eclipse and the precession of the orbit of Mercury, were inconclusive, since the results might not be valid or explained by some other phenomenon.[4] Such arguments were reasonable when Einstein was first nominated in 1910, but not following very public confirmations in 1918. Such was Gullstrand's reputation that the committee, unable to give the prize to Einstein but unable to award it to anyone else, gave nobody the prize that year. (Einstein was instead retroactively awarded the 1921 prize for the photoelectric effect when Gullstrand was replaced byCarl Wilhelm Oseen in 1922, withNiels Bohr concurrently being awarded the 1922 prize).
Due to the mathematical content of Gullstand's writing,Horatio Burt Williams lamented in 1926 that "there are few ophthalmologists and not many physiologists who are able to read [Gullstrand's papers] and for the same reason that the chemists ofGibbs' day were unable to read his work."[5]
1919: "Preparation of non spherical surfaces for optical instruments",Kgl. Svenska Vetenskapsakademiens Handlingar, vol. 60: 155, abstracted inZeitschrift für Instrumentenkunde, vol. 41 (1921), pp. 123–25
1922: "Allgemeine Lösung des statischen Einkörperproblems in der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie",Arkiv för Matematik, Astronomi och Fysik 16(8):1–15
