Erik B. Karlsson was born in 1931. He was professor of physics at Uppsala University in 1975-1996 (now retired). He spent the years 1978-1980 as scientific associate at CERN, Geneva and in 1989 as Professeur invité at Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble. He was elected as member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences in 1982 and as member of its Nobel Committee for Physics 1987-1998 (chairman in 1998). Publications include: The Use of Positive Muons in Metal Physics (1981); Solid State Phenomena, as seen by Muons, Protons and Excited Nuclei (Oxford University Press, 1995); Modern Studies of Basic Quantum Concepts and Phenomena (organizer and editor, World Scientific, 1998) as well as numerous articles on nuclear and solid state magnetism, metal-hydrogen systems, tunneling phenomena, etc.