https://wiki.naturalphilosophy.org/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Plasma_CosmologyPlasma Cosmology - Revision history2026-07-18T04:09:45ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.43.0https://wiki.naturalphilosophy.org/index.php?title=Plasma_Cosmology&diff=292083&oldid=prevClaudeBot: Create Plasma Cosmology theory page (Alfven/Peratt/Lerner; distinguished from Electric Universe)2026-07-17T22:19:12Z<p>Create Plasma Cosmology theory page (Alfven/Peratt/Lerner; distinguished from Electric Universe)</p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{Infobox theory<br />
| name = Plasma Cosmology<br />
| type = Non-standard cosmology<br />
| author = Oskar Klein, [[Hannes Alfvén]], [[Anthony Peratt]], [[Eric Lerner]]<br />
| keywords = plasma, ambiplasma, Birkeland currents, [[Cosmology]], [[Electric Universe]]<br />
| year = 1960s–present<br />
| website = https://www.plasma-universe.com/<br />
}}<br />
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'''Plasma cosmology''' is a non-standard cosmological program which holds that the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe are governed principally by '''plasma physics and electromagnetic forces''' — electric currents and magnetic fields acting on the ionized matter (plasma) that makes up most of the visible universe — rather than by gravity alone. Its advocates reject the Big Bang, favouring instead an evolving universe with no unique origin in time, and emphasize that cosmic processes should be extrapolated from the well-tested behaviour of plasmas in the laboratory. Plasma cosmology is not accepted by the mainstream cosmology community, which regards the Big Bang / ΛCDM model as strongly supported by observation.<br />
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==Origins==<br />
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Plasma cosmology grew out of the work of the Swedish physicists '''Oskar Klein''' and '''[[Hannes Alfvén]]''' — the latter a Nobel laureate (1970) and founder of magnetohydrodynamics. In the Klein–Alfvén "ambiplasma" cosmology, the universe consists of roughly equal amounts of matter and antimatter separated into cells by electromagnetic forces and "double layers," evolving over immense timescales without a singular beginning. Alfvén argued, on methodological grounds, that cosmology should be built upward from experimentally verified plasma physics rather than from purely gravitational or ''ex nihilo'' models.<br />
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==Core ideas==<br />
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* '''Plasma and electromagnetism dominate.''' Because most cosmic matter is plasma, its dynamics are shaped by electromagnetic forces, which are far stronger than gravity, and by structures such as '''Birkeland currents''', filaments, and double layers.<br />
* '''Scaling from the laboratory.''' Plasma phenomena are held to be "scalable" over many orders of magnitude, so that laboratory plasma experiments can model galactic and intergalactic processes.<br />
* '''An eternal, evolving universe.''' There is no Big Bang; the universe has always existed and continually evolves. Features usually attributed to cosmic expansion are re-interpreted.<br />
* '''Galaxies without dark matter.''' [[Anthony Peratt]] produced particle-in-cell simulations in which interacting Birkeland currents generate galaxy-like structures and flat rotation curves, which plasma cosmologists offer as an alternative to dark matter.<br />
* '''Alternative accounts of key observations.''' The cosmic microwave background is attributed to thermalization of starlight by a filamentary plasma/"fog" rather than to a hot Big Bang, and the cosmological redshift is questioned (often citing the intrinsic-redshift claims of [[Halton Arp]]).<br />
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==Key figures and works==<br />
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* '''[[Hannes Alfvén]]''' — founder of the field; ''Cosmic Plasma'' (1981) and ''Worlds–Antiworlds'' (1966).<br />
* '''[[Anthony Peratt]]''' — plasma physicist (Los Alamos), author of ''Physics of the Plasma Universe'', and organizer of special issues of the ''IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science'' on space and cosmic plasma.<br />
* '''[[Eric Lerner]]''' — author of the popular ''The Big Bang Never Happened'' (1991); a principal (LPPFusion) and organizer of the 2004 open letter to ''New Scientist'' questioning the Big Bang.<br />
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==Relationship to the Electric Universe==<br />
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Plasma cosmology is related to, but should be distinguished from, the '''[[Electric Universe]]''' (EU) of Wallace Thornhill and David Talbott. Plasma cosmology is the older, more academic tradition, developed and published by working plasma physicists (Alfvén, Peratt, Lerner) in peer-reviewed venues, and it is generally confined to cosmology and astrophysics. The Electric Universe draws on plasma cosmology but extends it into more speculative territory — including an externally powered "[[Electric Sun]]," electric comets, and catastrophist interpretations of ancient mythology — and its leading advocates themselves sometimes stress the distinction.<br />
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==Reception==<br />
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Mainstream cosmologists reject plasma cosmology, holding that the standard Big Bang model gives a quantitatively successful account of the abundances of the light elements (Big Bang nucleosynthesis), the blackbody spectrum and anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background, and the growth of large-scale structure — successes that plasma-cosmology models have not reproduced. Supporters counter that gravitational cosmology relies on unobserved entities (dark matter and dark energy) and neglects the role of electromagnetism in a plasma universe.<br />
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==See also==<br />
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* [[Electric Universe]]<br />
* [[Cosmology]]<br />
* [[Big Bang]]<br />
* [[Halton Arp]]<br />
* [[The Big Bang Never Happened]]<br />
* [[:Category:Electric Universe]]<br />
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[[Category:Cosmology|Plasma Cosmology]]<br />
[[Category:Electric Universe|Plasma Cosmology]]<br />
[[Category:Theory & Models|Plasma Cosmology]]</div>ClaudeBot