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Plasma cosmology is a cosmology that is generally attributed to Hannes Alfvén in the 1960s that attempts to explain the development of the visible universe through the interaction of electromagnetic forces on astrophysical plasma,. Alfvén developed his cosmological ideas based on scaling of observations from terrestrial laboratories and in situ space physics experiments to cosmological scales orders-of-magnitude greater.

Plasma cosmology opposes the current widely-held belief that big bang explains the origin and evolution of the universe on its largest scales, relying instead on testable hypotheses involving laboratory plasmas which are then compared to astrophysical plasmas. While in the late 1980s to early 1990s there was limited discussion over the merits of plasma cosmology, today advocates for these ideas are generally ignored by the professional cosmology community, which is composed mainly of believers in big bang cosmology.

Cosmic plasma

Hannes Alfvén devoted much of his professional career attempting to characterize plasmas for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1970. However, while plasma physics is uncontroversially accepted to play an important role in many astrophysical phenomena due in part to plasma's ubiquity, Alfvén held to a few ideas which have not been accepted by the believers of big bang cosmology. Chief among these is the assertion that electromagnetic forces are of greater importance than gravitation on the largest scales. Alfvén came to this conclusion by extrapolating plasma phenomena from small scales to large scales, as the properties of plasmas remain the same independent of scale, the same laws of physics apply to them.

Some of the more provocative proposals of Alfvén included qualitative explanations for star formation using Birkeland currents. These plasma currents were held by Alfvén and his supporters to be responsible for many filamentary structures seen in astrophysical observations.

Alfvén and Klein cosmologies

The conceptual origins of plasma cosmology were developed in 1965 by Alfvén in his book Worlds-Antiworlds, basing some of his work on the ideas Kristian Birkeland first described at the turn of the century and Oskar Klein's earlier proposal that astrophysical plasmas played an important role in galaxy formation. The exploding double layer was also suggested by Alfvén as a possible mechanism for the generation of cosmic rays, x-ray bursts and gamma-ray bursts.

Alfvén postulated that the universe has always existed due to causality arguments and rejection of ex nihilo models as a stealth form of creationism. The cellular regions of exclusively matter or antimatter would appear to expand in regions local to annihilation, which Alfvén considered as a possible explanation for the observed apparent expansion of the universe as merely a local phase of a much larger history.

Further developments

Researchers have continued to promote and develop the approach, and publish in the special issues of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science that are co-edited by plasma scientist Anthony Peratt. A few papers regarding plasma cosmology were published in other journals. Additionally, in 1991, Eric J. Lerner, an independent researcher in plasma physics and nuclear fusion, wrote a popular-level book supporting plasma cosmology called The Big Bang Never Happened. At that time there was renewed interest in the subject among the cosmological community (along with other hypotheses which, unlike big bang, were testable). However, the final announcement (in April 1992) of COBE satellite data corrected the earlier contradiction of the Big Bang; the level of interest in plasma cosmology has since fallen such that little research is now conducted.

Comparison to mainstream cosmology

Plasma cosmology has been well-developed over the twentieth century and continues to offer a more coherent explanation for celestial phenomena than big bang and other alternative cosmologies.

Plasma cosmology offers reasonable and predictive explanations for many phenomena that stymie big bang and other alternative cosmologies.

Many observed asteroids have craters so large that if they had been formed by impact, the asteroids would have been demolished utterly. Only electric discharge explanations for these craters conform to the available evidence. Some named asteroids with craters that defy impact explanations include Ida, Eros, Mathilda and Gaspra.

Many of these asteroids also exhibit crater chains, again, inexplicable by impact models without relying on impossibly-remote coincidences and ad hoc assumptions. Crater chains are an expected result of electric discharge machining, the hypothesized cause of most observed cratering of rocky bodies in space. Crater chains exist in many places in the universe, for example the Noachis Terra region of Mars and other regions of Mars, on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, on Earth in Spain, on Callisto and on Earth's moon.

Other unresolvable problems exist within gravity-driven big bang cosmology. For example the abundance of bodies in the solar system with atmosphere of such density that gravitation is excluded from the realm of possible causes. Titan and Venus are two such examples of bodies with atmospheres more dense than gravity models allow as possible based on their perceived mass.

A host of atmospheric effects are also attributed to electrical phenomena. Aurorae are one example, but the entire host of meteorological phenomena on Earth can be attributed to electrical effects, with gravity an irrelevant side note. Saturn's "dragon storm" is yet another example of atmospheric phenomena that defy explanation by gravity models or big bang assumptions.

Comets present special difficulties to gravity-only big bang believers. Cometary "knots" in plasma tails are expected in an electric universe, but are unexpected and inexplicable by the mainstream using "dirty snowball" models and sublimation by solar heating. Concurrance of CME's on the sun with passage by comets is another phenomena that is inexplicable and unexpected by standard cosmologists using big bang assumptions, but are entirely to be expected in an electric universe with electric stars and electric comets. Comets also split and shatter, another phenomenon that is unexpected by big bang cosmologists clinging to gravity-only models, but which is again expected by electrical theorists. Lack of water is another death knell for the dirty snowball comet model. Abundant hydroxyl is observed to come from comets. Hydroxyl is generated at the surface by elecctric discharge machining of the silicates on the surface of comets in the presence of the ionized hydrogen solar wind particles.

A partial list of other problems within big bang gravity-only cosmologies that are resolved by electric explanations follows:

1. ring nebulas (their very presence invalidates gravity-only big bang models)
2. tornadic vortices in space (jets from active galaxies, et al)
3. galactic cluster collisions (should not happen after big bang)
4. shape and motion of galaxies (homopolar motor)
5. gamma bursts (gravity insufficient, natural consequence of electric discharge)
6. quasar ejection (ejected from parent galaxies, big bang redshift assumes vast distance separation and continual coincidental alignment)
7. craters (flat-floored, steep-walled craters in chains and other configurations improbably or impossible by impact)
8. dendritic ridges (present on many bodies, inexplicable by non-presence of water, natural consequence of electric discharge)
9. discharge jets (from comets, planets, moons, stars, galaxies, present on every scale)
10. sunspots
11. earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, dust devils, geothermal activity, et al

Notes

1. ^ Hannes Alfvén, "On hierarchical cosmology" (1983) Astrophysics and Space Science (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 89, no. 2, Jan. 1983, p. 313-324.
2. Helge S. Kragh, Cosmology and Controversy: The Historical Development of Two Theories of the Universe, 1996 Princeton University Press, 488 pages, ISBN 069100546X (pp.482-483)
3. Alfven, Hannes O. G., "Cosmology in the plasma universe - an introductory exposition", IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. 18, Feb. 1990, p. 5-10.
4. Plasma cosmology advocates Anthony Peratt and Eric Lerner, in an open letter cosigned by a total of 34 authors, state "An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences", and "Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies".
5. Tom Van Flandern writes in The Top 30 Problems with the Big Bang, "For the most part, these four alternative cosmologies are ignored by astronomers."
6. H. Alfvén and C.-G. Falthammar, Cosmic electrodynamics (2nd edition, Clarendon press, Oxford, 1963). "The basic reason why electromagnetic phenomena are so important in cosmical physics is that there exist celestial magnetic fields which affect the motion of charged particles in space.... The strength of the interplanetary magnetic field is of the order of 10 gauss, which gives the ≈ 10. This illustrates the enormous importance of interplanetary and interstellar magnetic fields, compared to gravitation, as long as the matter is ionized." (p.2-3)
7. Alfvén, H.; Carlqvist, P., "Interstellar clouds and the formation of stars" Astrophysics and Space Science, vol. 55, no. 2, May 1978, p. 487-509.
8. Alfvén, H., "Double layers and circuits in astrophysics", (1986) IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. PS-14, Dec. 1986, p. 779-793. Based on the NASA sponsored conference "Double Layers in Astrophysics" (1986)
9. Hannes Alfvén, "Has the Universe an Origin" (1988) Trita-EPP, 1988, 07, p. 6. See also Anthony L. Peratt, "Introduction to Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology" (1995) Astrophysics and Space Science, v. 227, p. 3-11: "issues now a hundred years old were debated including plasma cosmology's traditional refusal to claim any knowledge about an 'origin' of the universe (e.g., Alfvén, 1988).
10. Alfvén, Hannes, "Cosmology: Myth or Science?" (1992) IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. 20, no. 6, p. 590-600. See also
11. (See IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, issues in 1986, 1989, 1990, 1992, 2000, 2003, and 2007 Announcement 2007 here)

Further reading

• Alfvén, Hannes:

• "On hierarchical cosmology", Astrophysics and Space Science (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 89, no. 2, Jan. 1983, p. 313-324. (1983)
• "Cosmology in the plasma universe". (1988) Laser and Particle Beams (ISSN 0263-0346), vol. 6, Aug. 1988, p. 389-398. Full text
• "Model of the plasma universe", IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. PS-14, Dec. 1986, p. 629-638 Full text (PDF)

• Peratt, Anthony:

• The Plasma Universe (Website) overview and peer reviewed paper collection.
• "Evolution of the plasma universe. I - Double radio galaxies, quasars, and extragalactic jets", IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. PS-14, Dec. 1986, p. 639-660. Full text (PDF)
• "Evolution of the plasma universe. II - The formation of systems of galaxies", IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. PS-14, Dec. 1986, p. 763-778. Full text (PDF)
• "The role of particle beams and electrical currents in the plasma universe", Peratt, Anthony L., Laser and Particle Beams (ISSN 0263-0346), vol. 6, Aug. 1988, p. 471-491 Full text (PDF)

• Wright, E. L. "Errors in "The Big Bang Never Happened"". See also: Lerner, E. J. "Dr. Wright is Wrong". Lerner's reply to the above.
• IEEE Xplore, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 18 issue 1 (1990), Special Issue on Plasma Cosmology including A. L. Peratt, "Plasma cosmology", IEEE T. Plasma Sci. 18, 1-4 (1990).
• Various authors: "Introduction to Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology", Astrophysics and Space Science, v. 227 (1995) p. 3-11. Proceedings of the Second IEEE International Workshop on Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology, held from 10 to 12 May 1993 in Princeton, New Jersey

Books

• H. Alfvén, Worlds-antiworlds: antimatter in cosmology, (Freeman, 1966).
• H. Alfvén, Cosmic Plasma (Reidel, 1981) ISBN 90-277-1151-8
• E. J. Lerner, The Big Bang Never Happened, (Vintage, 1992) ISBN 0-679-74049-X
• A. L. Peratt, Physics of the Plasma Universe, (Springer, 1992) ISBN 0-387-97575-6

• Cosmology
• Space plasmas
• Fringe subjects without critical scientific evaluation
• Fringe science