People

Carl-Gunne Fälthammar (b. 4 December 1931, Markaryd, Sweden) is Professor Emeritus at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden, specialising in space and plasma physics in the School of Electrical Engineering. He succeeded Hannes Alfvén as Professor of Plasma Physics in 1975.[1] His research interests include plasma electrodynamics, with application to space and astrophysical … Read more

Charles Edward Rhodes Bruce (C.E.R. Bruce), MA., DSc., FIEE., FInstP., (19 April 1902 Shettleston, Glasgow – 30 Dec 1979) was a Scottish astrophysicist and writer. He was educated at Edinburgh University where he finished with First Class Honours in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. 1924 he joined the Electrical Research Association (now ERA Technology Ltd) in … Read more

Eric J. Lerner (b. 1947 Brookline, MA. USA) is an award-winning popular science writer, plasma researcher and advocate of plasma cosmology,[2] In 1991, he authored The Big Bang Never Happened, a popular science book highlighting Plasma Cosmology in comparison to the Big Bang theory. He has also had a number of peer-reviewed papers published, an … Read more

Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén (b. May 30, 1908; Norrköping, Sweden – d. April 2, 1995; Djursholm, Sweden) was a Swedish scientist who is considered one of the founding father of the field of space plasma physics.[2] He made many contributions and discoveries associated with both terrestrial and cosmic plasmas, (not always acknowledged by his peers), … Read more

Irving Langmuir (January 31, 1881 in Brooklyn, New York – August 16, 1957 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts) was an American chemist and physicist. His most noted publication was the famous 1919 article “The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules” in which, building on Gilbert Lewis’s cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel’s chemical bonding theory, … Read more

Kristian Olaf Bernhard Birkeland (13 December 1867 – 15 June 1917) was a Norwegian scientist who has been called “the first space scientist”[1] and “the father of plasma experiments in the laboratory and space”[2] [3] [4]. He is perhaps most well-known for his scientific work on the aurora using a terrella (a magnetized globe), and … Read more

Willard Harrison Bennett (June 13, 1903 – September 28, 1987) was a scientist and inventor, born in Findlay, Ohio. Bennett conducted research into plasma physics, astrophysics, geophysics, surface physics, and physical chemistry. The Bennett pinch is named after him. Biography Born in Findlay, Ohio, Bennett attended Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1920-22 and Ohio State … Read more

Winston H. Bostick (b. 5 March 1916 Freeport, IL – d. 19 January 1991 Tijuana, Mexico)[1] was a physicist and former head of the physics department at the Stevens Institute of Technology. His research interests included the plasma focus, plasma vortex phenomena, plasmoids, simulation of cosmical astrophysics by plasma physics experiments in the laboratory, showing … Read more