engineering

Kristian Gleditsch

Kristian Gleditsch is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kristian Gleditsch rather than just read about it. In short: Kristian Gleditsch, MBE (30 June 1901 – 7 April 1973) was a Norwegian civil engineer and geodesist. He served as and Director of the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority from 1945 until 1971.

Key takeaways

Kristian Gleditsch belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kristian Gleditsch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kristian Gleditsch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kristian Gleditsch, MBE (30 June 1901 – 7 April 1973) was a Norwegian civil engineer and geodesist. He served as and Director of the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority from 1945 until 1971.

Background He was born in Tromsøysund Municipality (now part of Tromsø Municipality) in Troms county, Norway. He was a son of headmaster Karl Kristian Gleditsch (1851–1913) and Petra Birgitte Hansen (1857–1913). His family moved to Trondhjem and then Fredrikshald in 1905. From 1913 he lived with his sister Ellen Gleditsch. He was a nephew of Jens Gran Gleditsch and Kristen Gran Gleditsch, a first cousin of Henry Gleditsch and second cousin of Rolf Juell Gleditsch and Odd Gleditsch, Sr. In February 1934 he married fellow activist Ingrid Margaret Haslund (1908–1996), better known as Nini Haslund Gleditsch.

Career He took his examen artium in Kristiania (now Oslo) in 1919, enrolled at the Norwegian Institute of Technology and graduated as a civil engineer in 1923. He studied further in France until 1925. He worked for the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority (then known as Norges Geografiske Oppmåling) while studying, and when he returned to Norway in 1927 to work as a research assistant at the Norwegian Institute of Technology, he became a prominent member of the Student Society in Trondheim, Mot Dag and Clarté. He was also active in the Communist Party of Norway, but was excluded in 1929 because of his membership in Mot Dag. He worked as an editor of science articles in the working class encyclopedia Arbeidernes leksikon from 1932 to 1936, and worked in the publishing house Arbeidermagasinet in the same period. From 1936 to 1937 he was a secretary for the Norwegian Support Committee for Spain, which sided with the Second Spanish Republic. He also chaired the Norwegian Students' Society in 1934 and 1937. From 1938 to 1940 he worked for the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority (then known as Norges Geografiske Oppmåling) in Aker and Oslo. He had to leave Norway in 1940 due to the German occupation of Norway, and was among those who oversaw the flight of the Norwegian National Treasury. He settled in the United Kingdom with his wife, and worked in the Norwegian Ministry of Defence from 1940 to 1943 and for the Norwegian High Command from 1943 to 1945. After the liberation of Norway in 1945, he was appointed director of the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority, a position he held until 1971. He also chaired the Norwegian Geographical Society from 1949 to 1953. He became involved in the Norwegian development aid project in Kerala, as chairman of the aid foundation Indiafondet from 1958 to 1962. A significant motivation for the project was to please the leftist opposition within the Labour Party in a time of NATO membership and increased spendings on defence. Gleditsch was decorated with the Defense Metal and was declared a Member of the Order of the British Empire. He was decorated as a Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav in 1970. He died on 7 April 1973 in Oslo.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kristian Gleditsch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kristian Gleditsch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kristian Gleditsch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kristian Gleditsch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kristian Gleditsch

In research: Kristian Gleditsch appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kristian Gleditsch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kristian Gleditsch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1901 births, 1973 deaths, 20th-century civil engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kristian Gleditsch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kristian Gleditsch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kristian Gleditsch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kristian Gleditsch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kristian Gleditsch in simple terms?

Kristian Gleditsch, MBE (30 June 1901 – 7 April 1973) was a Norwegian civil engineer and geodesist. He served as and Director of the Norwegian Mapping and Cadastre Authority from 1945 until 1971.

Why does Kristian Gleditsch matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kristian Gleditsch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kristian Gleditsch.