'Olaus Rudbeckius', junior or ''Olof Rudbeck (d.y.)'' (
1660-
1740),
Swedish explorer and scientist, son of
Olaus Rudbeck Sr. Rudbeck Jr. succeeded his father as professor of medicine at
Uppsala University. Young Rudbeck was an able
botanist and
ornithologist who took his doctor's degree in
Utrecht in 1690. He traveled to
Lapland in 1695, joining an expedition commissioned by the King, for which his mission was to study nature, the mountains in particular. He returned with an album of beautifully colored pictures of birds, flowers and scenery, for which he is best remembered.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Rudbeck Jr. turned his attention away from nature studies to speculation about the relationship between
Lapp and
Hebrew languages. He was
ennobled in 1719 (
noble family Rudbeck, nr. 1637). His student, the botanist
Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), named a genus of flowers Rudbeckia in honor of him and his father.
His sister, Wendela, married Peter Olai Nobelius, and from them descends
Alfred Nobel, founder of the
Nobel Prizes.
References