Know plasma, know 99.999% of the Universe (No plasma, no Universe)
Plasma cosmology is a model of the origins of the Universe in which plasma and electromagnetic forces play a significant role, and in which an actualistic approach is preferred: i.e. starting from the observed present-state and trying to extrapolate backwards in time to even more ancient states.[2] Hannes Alfvén also investigated the merits of a … Read more
Strong radial magnetic fields can make a plasma pinch like the hourglass-shaped nebula above; produce characteristic filaments like in the plasma ball (top row); and produce particle beams as seen in the dense plasma focus. Introduction 1. What is plasma? 2. Where is plasma? 3. Why is plasma so? 4. Electrified … Read more
A Plasma instability is a region where turbulence occurs due to changes in the characteristics of a plasma (eg. temperature, density, electric fields, magneti fields). As the name suggests, instabilities are unstable, though they may appear to evolve through different forms (morphology). Similar types of instability are common in fluids (liquids and gases). Categorization Plasma … Read more
Plasma redshift is a theortical redshift mechanism which occurs when a photon enters a hot, sparse electron plasma. Derived by Ari Brynjolfsson, his paper notes: “Abstract: A new interaction, plasma redshift, is derived, which is important only when photons penetrate a hot, sparse electron plasma. The derivation of plasma redshift is based entirely on conventional … Read more
The parameters of plasmas, including their spatial and temporal extent, vary by many orders of magnitude. Nevertheless, there are significant similarities in the behaviors of apparently disparate plasmas. It is not only of theoretical interest to understand the scaling of plasma behavior, it also allows the results of laboratory experiments to be applied to larger … Read more
A plasmoid is a coherent structure of plasma and magnetic fields. Plasmoids have been proposed to explain natural phenomena such as ball lightning,[2] magnetic bubbles in the magnetosphere,[3] and objects in cometary tails,[4] in the solar wind,[5][6] in the solar atmosphere,[7] and in the heliospheric current sheet. Plasmoids produced in the laboratory include field-reversed configurations, … Read more
A pseudo-plasma is one that approximates a real plasma, and consequently one whose properties and characteristics may not accurately describe a real plasma. In 1974, Alfvén’s theoretical work on field-aligned electric currents in the aurora, based on earlier work by Kristian Birkeland, was confirmed by satellite, and Birkeland currents were discovered. In his later years, … Read more
The terms pseudoskepticism (sometimes pseudo-skepticism) and pathological skepticism are used to denote the phenomena when certain forms of skepticism deviate from objectivity. The term has been in limited use in philosophy for more than a century, but has only recently been the object of more systematic attempts at defining the concept. The most well known … Read more
Quasi-neutrality (quasi, from the Latin, “as if”, “resembling”) describes the apparent charge neutrality of a plasma overall, while at smaller scales, the positive and negative charges making up the plasma, may give rise to charged regions and electric fields. Since electrons are very mobile, plasmas are excellent conductors of electricity, and any charges that develop … Read more
A pulsar (pulsating star) is an astronomical object which produces a regular pulse of radio waves (electromagnetic radiation) which is conventionally thought to be due to a rotating neutron star. The Plasma Universe explains pulsars as a “magnetospheric transmission line system”: “In the three decades since their discovery, the accumulated body of observational data from … Read more