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Hannes Alfvén: Dean of the Plasma Dissidents
| Article
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14650 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1988 |
2,644 Words |
| Author
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Anthony L. Peratt
Anthony L. Peratt conducts plasma research at the Los Alamos
National Laboratory. He was previously with the Maz Planck
Institute for Plasma Physics in West Germany. |
In the world of specialized science, Swedish electrical engineer Hannes Alfvén is an enigma. Regarded as a heretic by many physicists, Alfvén has made contributions to physics that are today being applied in the development of particle beam accelerators, controlled thermonuclear fusion, hypersonic flight, rocket propulsion, and the braking of reentering space vehicles. At the same time, applications of his research in space science include explanations of the Van Allen radiation belt, the reduction of the earth's magnetic field during magnetic storms, the magnetosphere (a protective plasma envelope surrounding the earth), the formation of comets' tails, the formation of the solar system, the dynamics of plasmas in our galaxy, and the fundamental nature of the universe itself.
Hannes Alfvén has played a central role in the development of several modern fields of physics, including plasma physics, the physics of charged particle beams, and interplanetary and magnetospheric physics. He is also usually regarded as the father of the branch of plasma physics known as magnetohydrodynamics.
In addition, Alfvén's contributions to astrophysics have been as important as his contributions to physics. His postulation in 1937 of a galactic magnetic field forms the basis today for one of the fastest growing areas of research in astrophysics. In 1950, together with his colleague N. Herlofson, Alfvén was the first to identify nonthermal radiation from astronomical sources as synchrotron radiation, which is produced by fast-moving electrons in the presence of magnetic fields. The recognition that the synchrotron mechanism of radiation is important in celestial objects has been one of the most fruitful developments in astrophysics, as nearly all the radiation recorded by radio telescopes derive from this mechanism.
In spite of these fundamental contributions to physics and astrophysics, Alfvén, now professor of electrical engineering at the University of California at San Diego, is still viewed as a heretic by many in those very fields. Alfvén's theories in astrophysics and plasma physics have usually gained acceptance only two or three decades after their publication. Characteristically--and also concomitant with his 80th birthday in 1988--Alfvén is to be awarded the most prestigious prize of the American Geophysical Union, the Bowie medal, for his work three decades earlier on comets and plasmas in the solar system. Disputed for 30 years, many of his theories about the solar system have only recently been vindicated through measurements of cometary and planetary magnetospheres by artificial satellites and space
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