Alfvén waves and magnetohydrodynamics
Ondas de Alfvén y magnetohidrodinámica
- Date
- 1942 · confidence high
- Place
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
- Credited to
- Hannes Alfvén
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
In 1942 Alfvén predicted that a conducting fluid threaded by a magnetic field carries waves, now called Alfvén waves. His theory began magnetohydrodynamics, the basis of space plasma physics.
Physicists at the time received the prediction with scepticism; according to Alfvén, Fermi accepted it in 1949, and the waves were observed in liquid mercury (Lundquist, 1949). Alfvén won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1970.
What it led to
- plasma physics in the Sun, the solar wind and magnetospheres
- magnetic-confinement fusion designs
- solar corona heating by waves