Konstanty Jodko-Narkiewicz, also known as Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodko (1901–1963), was a Polish

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...

who specialized in studying

cosmic radiation Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the Sol ...

. He was also a

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

eer,

Arctic explorer Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have explored ...

, and

balloonist In aeronautics, a balloon is an unpowered aerostat, which remains aloft or floats due to its buoyancy. A balloon may be free, moving with the wind, or tethered to a fixed point. It is distinct from an airship, which is a powered aerostat that ...

Geophysicist

Jodko-Narkiewicz trained in

natural sciences Natural science or empirical science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer ...

and

geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

, gaining a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

. Professionally he specialized in the study of

. In the 1930s, he was an assistant at the Physical Institute of

Warsaw University The University of Warsaw (, ) is a public research university in Warsaw, Poland. Established on November 19, 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country, offering 37 different fields of study as well as 100 specializat ...

. He found a happy marriage between his career as a physicist and his interest in climbing. For instance, he combined a climbing expedition to the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

in 1934 with a project to measure geomagnetic effects on cosmic rays.Nick Ellis, M. Belén Gavela, ''1993 European School of High-Energy Physics: Zakopane, Poland, 12–25 September 1993: proceedings, Issue 4'' (1994), p. 246 Between 1933 and 1939, of the seventeen papers on cosmic-ray physics published in Poland, Jodko-Narkiewicz was author or co-author of twelve.

Mountaineer

An experienced

alpinist Alpine climbing () is a type of mountaineering that uses any of a broad range of advanced climbing skills, including rock climbing, ice climbing, and/or mixed climbing, to summit typically large routes (e.g. multi-pitch or big wall) in an alpi ...

, Jodko-Narkiewicz also climbed mountains in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...

.Jerzy Gembicki, Zbigniew Mitzner, ''Wzdłuż dalekiego brzegu: wybór reportaży z lat międzywojennych'' (1966)
p. 737
online at books.google.com

'', page at r.ifj.edu.pl, accessed 13 November 2010 (in

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

) In 1929 he climbed the

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

Langjökull Langjökull (, Icelandic for "long glacier") is the second largest ice cap in Iceland (), after Vatnajökull. It is situated in the west of the Icelandic interior or Highlands of Iceland and can be seen clearly from Haukadalur. It covers the ...

. In 1933–1934 he led a Polish expedition organized by the Tatra Society to the

(the 1st Polish Andean Expedition), beginning with the

Cordillera de la Ramada The Cordillera de la Ramada (Spanish for "Range of the Shelter", also called Cordón de la Ramada, in which ''cordón'' means 'ribbon' or 'rope', is a mountain range in the San Juan province of Argentina, forming part of the Andes. Its highest p ...

, a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. The party included Stefan W. Daszynski, Jan K. Dorawski, Wiktor Ostrowski, Adam Karpiński, meteorologist and equipment designer, and Stefan Osiecki, cameraman, and it made the

first ascent In mountaineering and climbing, a first ascent (abbreviated to FA in climbing guidebook, guide books), is the first successful documented climb to the top of a mountain or the top of a particular climbing route. Early 20th-century mountaineers a ...

s of

Mercedario Cerro Mercedario is the highest peak of the Cordillera de la Ramada range and the eighth-highest mountain of the Andes. It is located 100 km to the north of Aconcagua, in the Argentine province of San Juan. Ascent history It was fir ...

, Alma Negra, Pico Polaco, La Mesa, and

Cerro Ramada Cerro Ramada is a mountain in the Cordillera de la Ramada range of the Andes, in Argentina. It has a height of . The first ascent of the mountain was by the leader of a Polish expedition in 1934, Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodka, on February 9 that y ...

, then proceeded south to climb the better-known

Aconcagua Aconcagua () is a mountain in the Principal Cordillera of the Andes mountain range, in Mendoza Province, Argentina. It is the highest mountain in the Americas, the highest outside Asia, and the highest in both the Western Hemisphere and the ...

, the highest mountain in the

Americas The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...

. The

Polish Glacier The Polish Glacier (Spanish ''Glaciar de los Polacos'') is one of the glacial fields of Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Andes and the Americas. It was named after the Polish expedition of 1934.J. Neate (1994). ''Mountaineering in the Andes,' ...

of Aconcagua was named after this expedition, which originated an alternative route to the peak along the

. In 1936, with Stanislaw Siedlecki and Stefan Bernadzikiewicz, he took part in a Polish expedition which crossed West Spitsbergen from south to north. Covering 850 kilometres, the three men made the first complete traverse of Spitsbergen.

Balloonist

Considering his interests in cosmic rays and mountaineering, it was a natural development for Narkiewicz-Jodko to take to the skies as a balloonist. A high point in this area of his career came on March 29, 1936, when with a scientific colleague he succeeded in taking the balloon ''Warszawa II'' (Warsaw II) up to a height of 10,000 metres for the purpose of scientific measurements.

The ''Star of Poland'' incident

On 14 October 1938, in the Tatra Mountains, Jodko-Narkiewicz and Captain Zbigniew Burzyński attempted a stratospheric flight in the

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

balloon A balloon is a flexible membrane bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, or air. For special purposes, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), ...

'' Star of Poland''. Their aim was to reach a height of 30 kilometres, beating the world record for high-altitude flight. They were equipped with a Geiger-Mueller tube telescope, intending to measure the variation in intensity of

cosmic ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the ...

s at different

altitude Altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum (geodesy), datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometr ...

s. The balloon caught fire during take-off, while still less than 100 feet above the ground, but the two men were able to land the

gondola The gondola (, ; , ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, in a scul ...

safely and were uninjured. After this, there were no more high-altitude flights in the 1930s. Jodko-Narkiewicz died at Psary, in the region of

Greater Poland Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; ), is a Polish Polish historical regions, historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed by Kalisz, the oldest city in Poland. The bound ...

, in 1963.Zofia Radwańska-Paryska, Witold H. Paryski, Kazimierz Saysse-Tobiczyk, ''Encyklopedia tatrzańska'' (1973), p. 329: "Narkiewicz-Jodko Konstanty, ur. 1901 w Pińczowie, zm. 1963 w Psarach (Wielkopolska). Podróżnik, taternik, alpinista, polarysta, fizyk..."

Selected publications

*Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodko, ''W walce o szczyty Andów'' attle for the Peaks of the Andes Warsaw, 1935 (illustrated) *Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodko, 'Anregung der Strahlung einiger Metalle durch Quecksilberdampf im Zustand des Nachleuchtens', in ''Physikalische Berichte'', vol. 10 (1929), 1650 *Dr S. L. Ziemecki & Mr K. Narkiewicz-Jodko, 'The Raman-effect in the proximity of the critical point', in ''

Philosophical Magazine The ''Philosophical Magazine'' is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. It was established by Alexander Tilloch in 1798;John Burnett"Tilloch, Alexander (1759–1825)" Dictionary of National Biography#Oxford Dictionary of ...

'' (Taylor & Francis, 1930), pp. 299–306 *Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodko, 'Nachleuchten im elektrisch erregten Hg- Dampf', in ''Physikalische Berichte'', vol. 15, part 1 (1934), 630 *S. Ziemecki & K. Narkiewicz-Jodko, 'Continuous Variation of Cosmic Ray Intensity in the Higher Layers of the Troposphere', in ''Acad. Polonaise Sciences et Lettres'', bulletin no. 7a (July, 1936), pp. 318–326abstracted in ''Science abstracts: Physics'', vol. 40 (1937), p. 278, as: "Measurements made at heights from 6650 m. to 10000 m. during a flight of the balloon "Warszawa II" on March 29, 1936' *K. Narkiewicz-Jodko, 'Specific Ionization Characteristic of Cosmic Rays', in ''Bulletin international: Sciences mathématiques'' (Kraków, 1938)

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jodko-Narkiewicz, Konstanty 1901 births 1963 deaths 20th-century Polish physicists Polish mountain climbers Academic staff of the University of Warsaw Place of birth missing