2021-04-02 Fri

Hannes Alfven was a Swedish electrical engineer and winner, with Louis Neel of France, of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 for his essential contributions in founding plasma physics—the study of plasmas (ionized gases).

Alfven received his PhD from the University of Uppsala in 1934. His thesis was titled "Investigations of High-frequency Electromagnetic Waves." He described the class of MHD waves now known as Alfven 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. Alfven made many contributions to plasma physics, including theories describing the behaviour 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.

Much of Alfvén’s early research was included in his Cosmical Electrodynamics (1950). He also wrote On the Origin of the Solar System (1954), Worlds-Antiworlds (1966), and Cosmic Plasma (1981). To honour him Republic the Guinee issued a stamp of value 6500 Franc in 2006.

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