Hans Alfven and his contributions to Modern Astronomy

If you Wikipedia Hans Alfven this is what comes up

“Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (Swedish: [alˈveːn]; 30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now known as Alfvén waves. He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics and electrical engineering. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth’s magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy.”

If you dig a little deeper you will find

“Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (Swedish: [alˈveːn]; 30 May 1908 – 2 April 1995) was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He described the class of MHD waves now known as Alfvén waves. He was originally trained as an electrical power engineer and later moved to research and teaching in the fields of plasma physics and electrical engineering. Alfvén made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behavior of aurorae, the Van Allen radiation belts, the effect of magnetic storms on the Earth’s magnetic field, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics of plasmas in the Milky Way galaxy.”

“Applications of Alfvén’s research in space science include:

Van Allen radiation belt theory
Reduction of the Earth’s magnetic field during magnetic storms
Magnetosphere (protective plasma covering the earth)
Formation of comet tails
Formation of the solar system
Dynamics of plasmas in the galaxy
Fundamental nature of the universe”

From here..

Hans Alfven in a Plasma universe

Hans Alfven did a lot of work with plasmas in the laboratory and recognised some of the same structures in space. This lead him to an understanding of workings within the universe that conflicted with mainstream Astronomy.

He was a critic against the Big Bang. ” The problem with the Big Bang was that astrophysicists tried to extrapolate the origin of the universe from mathematical theories developed on the blackboard. The Big Bang was a myth devised to explain creation, according to Alfvén”

“Alfvén’s work was disputed for many years by the senior scientist in space physics, the British-American geophysicist Sydney Chapman. Alfvén’s disagreements with Chapman stemmed in large part from trouble with the peer review system. Alfvén rarely benefited from the acceptance generally afforded senior scientists in scientific journals. He once submitted a paper on the theory of magnetic storms and auroras to the American journal Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity, and his paper was rejected on the ground that it did not agree with the theoretical calculations of conventional physics of the time.”

Some quotes of his include

“I have always believed that astrophysics should be the extrapolation of laboratory physics, that we must begin from the present universe and work our way backward to progressively more remote and uncertain epochs.”

“We should remember that there was once a discipline called natural philosophy. Unfortunately, this discipline seems not to exist today. It has been renamed science, but science of today is in danger of losing much of the natural philosophy aspect.”

“Most people today still believe, perhaps unconsciously, in the heliocentric universe every newspaper in the land has a section on astrology, yet few have anything at all on astronomy.”

“We have to learn again that science without contact with experiments is an enterprise which is likely to go completely astray into imaginary conjecture.”
Hannes Alfven

His Honours include..

Honours
Alfvén was also honoured with the following:
1947 Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
1947 Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (resigned 1980).
1958 Foreign Member, Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Akademia NAUK).
1962 American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston.
1965 Honorary DSc, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
1966 Foreign Member, National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC.
1967 Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.
1970 Nobel Prize in Physics.
1971 Lomonosov Medal of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
1971 Gold Medal of the Franklin Institute.
1972 Foreign Member, Indian National Science Academy.
1974 Yugoslavian Academy of Science.
1977 Honorary DSc, University of Oxford.
1980 Foreign Member, Royal Society, London.
1985 Honorary PhD, Stockholm University.
1987 Bowie Gold Medal, American Geophysical Union.
1994 Dirac Medal, University of New South Wales and the Australian Institute of Physics.”

credits

http://www.plasma-universe.com/Hannes_Alfv%C3%A9n

Wiki

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