Alfven, Hannes, 1908-

Biography

Hannes Olof Gosta Alfven was born in Norrkoping, Sweden, on May 30, 1908, of parents who were both practising physicians. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Uppsala in 1934 and served as Professor of Electronics (1940-1964) and Professor of Plasma Physics (1964-1973) at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Since 1967, he served as Professor of Applied Physics at the University of California, San Diego, spending six months of the year at UCSD and six months at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

For his research in magnetohydrodynamics and plasma physics, Alfven shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics with Louis Eugene Felix Neel. He was a Foreign Associate Member of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.), a member of the Akademia Nauk (the former Soviet Union), and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1971, he was awarded the Franklin Gold Medal by the Franklin Institute as well as the Lomonosov Gold Medal, the highest award given by the then U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, for "outstanding achievements in plasma physics and astrophysics." Alfven was also a member of the Swedish Science Advisory and served as president of the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs.

Alfven often published his original work in relatively inaccessible journals. His book, COSMICAL ELECTRODYNAMICS appeared in 1950, followed by ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM (1959) with C.G. Falthammar; COSMICAL ELECTRODYNAMICS, FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES (1963); WORLDS-ANTIWORLDS: ANTIMATTER IN COSMOLOGY (1966); THE TALE OF THE BIG COMPUTER (1968) under the pen name of Olof Johannesson; ATOM, MAN AND THE UNIVERSE (1969); LIVING ON THE THIRD PLANET (1972) with his wife, Kerstin Alfven, and STRUCTURE AND EVOLUTIONARY HISTORY OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM (1975) with Gustaf Arrhenius.

More than ninety-nine percent of the matter in the universe is in the form of a plasma, that is, a gas consisting of electrically charged and neutral particles. Under special conditions, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) can be used to study plasmas. Hannes Alfven pioneered the development of MHD, the study of the motion of an electrically conducting fluid interacting with magnetic fields, and, in particular, the subject of plasma physics, the branch of MHD in which the fluid under study is a highly ionized gas consisting of nearly equal numbers of positively and negatively charged particles. Alfven was chiefly concerned with plasmas in stars, in the geomagnetic field, and in interplanetary and interstellar space, but his theories were basic to the study of laboratory plasmas encountered in the development of controlled thermonucelar fusion. More specifically, Alfven applied his analyses to such phenomena as geomagnetic storms, the aurora, the Van Allen radiation belts, sunspots, and the evolution of the solar system. His results have been seminal not only in designing thermonuclear reactors, but also in the development of astrophysics, space science, and geophysics. Despite (or perhaps because of) his major advances in the realm of nuclear physics, Alfven was outspoken in his warnings against the dangers associated with nuclear energy and nuclear bombs, and devoted much of his last years to working toward international conflict resolution and peace strategies.

From the guide to the Hannes Alfven Papers, 1945-1991, (University of California, San Diego. Geisel Library. Mandeville Special Collections Library.)