Pink Noise - Leonid Korogodski [51]
So much for mathematical elegance.
HANNES ALFVéN PROPOSED THE PLASMA UNIVERSE PARADIGM, a radically new way of looking at the universe. It is based on two main principles:
that the universe is made of plasma, for the most part; and
that the fundamental properties of plasma are the same everywhere and at any scale.
Note that the well-known cosmological scenarios — the universe expanding from a singularity forever, or expanding first and then contracting, or vice versa — are born by the assumption that the universe is homogeneous. In a fractal universe, infinitely many different scenarios are possible.
The second one, the principle of scalability of plasma, is supported by direct measurements at the scales ranging from microscopic to the size of planetary systems. About the same number of degrees of magnitude separates the latter from superclusters of galaxies. It is not unreasonable to suppose that the principle of scalability of plasma holds at those scales as well. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s discovery of a fractal structure (cf. [17]) suggests that this is indeed the case, for the fractal structure means self-similarity. The universe is made of filaments and cells (“great walls” of galaxies and empty voids), the structures typical of plasma’s self-organization properties.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing about it is that astronomical events can be scaled down, in both space and time, to fit into a plasma lab. One can, for example, try to reproduce the formation and evolution of galaxies, however briefly!
IEEE: the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
See also [30] for an account of experiments that reproduced the Martian blueberries in plasma discharges.
THIS WAS DONE, SUCCESSFULLY, BY ANTHONY PERATT (B. 1940). His results were first published in 1986 in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science [25].
A graduate student of Alfvén, Peratt is now a member of the Associate Directorate of Los Alamos National Laboratory. At that time, he was working with Blackjack V at Maxwell Labora? tories. Back then, this was the most powerful electromagnetic pulse generator, capable of producing briefly several times the power generating capacity of the entire human civilization. Ultra-fast photography of high-energy plasma discharges captured what seemed like mini-galaxies, complete with spirals, the same radiation patterns, and a suggestive evolution.
Their rotation curves were flat.
Intrigued, Peratt developed a theory and a computer model to also take gravity into account and simulate the real galaxies, one by one, always backing his results by direct experiments. His theory withstood all tests to date, without requiring modifications. Briefly, it can be summarized as follows.
UNLIKE GRAVITY THAT TENDS TO FORM ROUND BODIES, the electromagnetic force tends to form filaments, thanks to the so-called electromagnetic pinch that forces charged particles to do turns around the magnetic field lines in spirals as tight as possible.
Filaments of plasma parallel to both the electric and magnetic fields (called Birkeland filaments) play a crucial part in auroras and are common to the solar system. According to Peratt, the universe is filled with galactic-sized Birkeland filaments of very low density and current, producing so little radiation that they are very hard to detect.
Plasma is an excellent conductor, although not a perfect one. Thus, voltage can exist in plasma but primarily within narrow layers of charged particles, called double layers. Everywhere else, plasma is locally quasi-neutral, which means that the electrostatic force—the like