Johannes Falnes (born 15 December 1931) is a

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Experimental Physics Experimental physics is the category of disciplines and sub-disciplines in the field of physics that are concerned with the observation of physical phenomena and experiments. Methods vary from discipline to discipline, from simple experiments and o ...

at the Department of Physics of the

Norwegian University of Science and Technology Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

noted for his contributions to

wave energy Wave power is the capture of energy of wind waves to do useful work – for example, electricity generation, water desalination, or pumping water. A machine that exploits wave power is a wave energy converter (WEC). Waves are generated by wind p ...

research. He is one of the pioneers of modern wave energy research.

Education

Falnes received his master's and doctoral degrees both from the

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology ( Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was ...

Career

Falnes spent his career at the Norwegian Institute of Technology (1956–1959),

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

(1959–1961), the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen ( no, Universitetet i Bergen, ) is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in ...

(1961–1964), the

(1965–2001), and

SINTEF SINTEF ( no, Stiftelsen for industriell og teknisk forskning), headquartered in Trondheim, Norway, is an independent research organization founded in 1950 that conducts contract research and development projects. SINTEF has 2000 employees from 7 ...

(1966–1972), before retiring in 2002. He is, however, still professionally active. Falnes' main research interest has been ocean wave energy and its utilisation. Together with Kjell Budal, he initiated wave energy research in Norway in the 1970s. Falnes and Budal discovered the so-called antenna effect, where a floating point absorber could theoretically absorb far more wave energy from the sea than that which is directly incident upon its geometry, analogous to a radio antenna's ability to absorb radio waves. They also developed the latching control strategy to maximize energy extraction. In December 2006, a seminar titled Challenges for Wave Energy Technology was dedicated in tribute to Falnes on his 75th anniversary. The seminar was held in

Trondheim Trondheim ( , , ; sma, Tråante), historically Kaupangen, Nidaros and Trondhjem (), is a city and municipality in Trøndelag county, Norway. As of 2020, it had a population of 205,332, was the third most populous municipality in Norway, and ...

, Norway. Wave energy experts such as

Stephen Salter Stephen Hugh Salter, (born 7 December 1938) is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh and inventor of the eponymous Salter duck wave energy device. Salter is also a proponent of geoengineering and is respons ...

(

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 158 ...

), António Falcão (

Instituto Superior Técnico Instituto Superior Técnico MHSE • MHIP (IST, also known colloquially as Técnico, and stylized TÉCNICO LISBOA) is a public school of engineering and technology, part of University of Lisbon. It was founded as an autonomous school in 1911 ...

), Alain Clément (

École centrale de Nantes École Centrale de Nantes, or Centrale Nantes, is a grande école - a French engineering school - established in 1919 under the name of '' Institut Polytechnique de l'Ouest''. It delivers Graduate, Master, and PhD Programmes based on the latest ...

), and Richard Yemm ( Ocean Power Delivery) addressed various topics in the seminar. Falnes is a member of The

Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters The Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters ( da, Det Kongelige Norske Videnskabers Selskab, DKNVS) is a Norwegian learned society based in Trondheim. It was founded in 1760 and is Norway's oldest scientific and scholarly institution. The ...

and the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences.

Personal life

Among his pastimes are hiking and

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreatio ...

Selected publications

* *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Falnes, Johannes 1931 births People associated with CERN Living people Members of the Norwegian Academy of Technological Sciences Norwegian Institute of Technology alumni Norwegian Institute of Technology faculty Norwegian University of Science and Technology faculty Norwegian physicists Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters University of Bergen faculty