| Home | Plasma?What is it? It seems as though everyone has a different definition. Ask a doctor and itÕs a clear yellowish fluid that has saved millions of lives with blood transfusions. Ask someone in a TV store and you hear about the newest and greatest High Definition TV. A biologist begins explaining about the cell membrane, while my neighbor who works in an auto body shop began telling me about how clean and quickly the plasma saw he uses at work cuts through metal. I went to my unabridged dictionary and there were so many definitions I began to wish they had invented a few new words to clear up the confusion. One definition mentioned ionized gas. This was the definition I was hunting for. Going to the Internet I found out this type of plasma makes up over 99.99+% of the visible universe and probably most of what is not visible. I didnÕt know that, did you? This is a fascinating subject and the deeper I dug into it the more I realized how little I knew about it and also how little the scientific community has studied it. The fact is, Plasma Physics is very threatening to most scientists. They would rather not know. If plasma physics is true, then they would have to give up on gravity as the focus of astronomy. All those wonderful equations for string theory would have to be abandoned; perhaps even Black Holes? If you have spent most of your adult life working out the math on some popular theory and your reputation, funding, and perhaps even your tenure is dependent upon it; you probably wonÕt give it up without a struggle. But things are changing! The European Space Agency has launched a cluster of 4 satellites to study plasmas around the earth and sun. These 4 satellites have identical instruments and send out information in 3 dimensions. The Cluster, as it is known, was launched in 2000 and should stay in orbit until 2007. It is moved about and so far has studied the solar activity on the magnetosphere, the bow shock, the magnetopause, the polar cusp, the inner magnetosphere, the plasma wave modes of identification and the spatio-temporal fluctuations. Cluster has sent back so much information that it will be impossible for the astrophysicists to ignore it. Sorry, boys, plasmas are everywhere! Physicist David BohmÕs understanding of the physical reality annihilates the notion of empty space. Bohm showed space is as real as the matter that moves through it. Space and Matter are interconnected. Calculations of zero-point energy suggest that a single cubic centimeter of the so-called Òempty spaceÓ contains more energy than all the ÓmatterÓ in the known universe. Bohm concluded space was full rather than empty. The three forms of matter being studied in most elementary schools are solids, liquids and gases. Textbooks fail even to mention that our sun is plasma, the so-called ÒFourth StateÓ of matter. Since plasma makes up 99.99+% of the universe shouldn't it be called the First State of matter? Sir William Crookes, an English physicist, identified this state of matter in 1879. In 1927 the American Nobel Prize-winning physicist Irving Langmuir, named it Plasma borrowing the term from medical science because it resembled life itself- acting in a complicated and unpredictable manner. PlasmaÕs complexity vastly exceeds the other forms of matter. (Langmuir also coined the term ÒPathological Science Ófor things that just arenÕt so.)Ê At 0 degrees C. water is a solid, ice. Heat it to 100degrees C. and it becomes a gas, steam. Heat it up to 100,000 degrees C. and it ionizes into plasma. Under normal conditions a gas is made up of uncharged particles. The individual atoms in the gas contain equal numbers of negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons. They perfectly balance each other, so the atom has a net charge of zero. Hit it with an electrical charge whose free electrons knock loose other electrons and the atom loses its balance. It now has a net positive charge, turning it into an ion. (Recently Lawrence Lab in Berkeley has created plasma at almost absolute Zero, suggesting that the missing Dark Matter in space is also plasma.) The sun is our most visible plasma along with all the other stars. A much cooler form of plasma is seen in the Northern and Southern lights. If youÕve ever seen the Aurora dancing, it seems to be alive! When David Bohm was studying plasma at Lawrence Lab U.C. Berkeley in 1943 he got he same impression.Ê Bohm discovered in high temperature gas, (plasma) that the electrons stripped from the atoms donÕt behave as individual particles but as part of a larger, organized whole. These electrons produced highly organized effects as if some organic process was choreographing their collective behavior. These collective movements now called Bohm-diffusion gave him the impression that this sea of electrons was somehow alive. This was in 1943 while Bohm was still a graduate student. It was BohmÕs fist important discovery and this feeling of interconnectedness and wholeness runs through his life work. In 1947 he was assistant professor of physics at Princeton teaching quantum physics and had written a book on it, still studied today. By 1951 he was explaining Quantum Theory to Einstein in a series of intensive dialogues.Ê ÊPlasmas are bound up with hundreds of forms of technology in our everyday lives that we just take for granted. Besides that flat panel display, neon and florescent light, lasers, computer chips, etc. Viewed from the shuttle the populated areas of the earth are all glowing with light from high intensity plasma streetlights. A friend had an operation for a hip replacement and the joint was hardened with plasma and the instruments were sterilized by plasma. The list of uses grows longer almost every day. Since plasma comprises almost all the universe it seems logical to include it as another candidate for the mysterious IT which comprises the "Mind that is the Universe." Plasma belongs right in there with photons, gravity and strings. In fact a new cosmology has developed around it. Try the Holoscience link below and enter into a whole new universe. It will take you into the New World of "The Electric Universe.Ó http://www.holoscience.com/views/view_plasma.htm For more conventional views, try: http://www.ncpst.ie/plasma orhttp://www.microgravity.org.uk/subjects/Plasma.htm Blood Plasma |