A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe - New

Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) was the multi-talented American politician,
musician, philosopher, scientist and inventor who was one of the first to think
about the broad presence and influence in our world of electrical power. He had a
particular interest in lightning and believed that it was an electric force. His famous
kite flying experiment which took aloft a metal key during a thunderstorm to see
what would happen, was a practical attempt at proving the link between lightning
and electricity. This however was in the early days of electricity, and many years
would pass before the Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland really started the ball
rolling on the search for electricity in the atmosphere and in space and for the effects
that phenomenon has on the Earth itself. It would be from Birkeland’s research that
the discipline now referred to as ‘Plasma Science’ would emerge.
Professor Kristian Birkeland (1867 – 1917) [5-1]
This man trekked across the dangerous frozen arctic wastelands to perform
experiments that involved detailed studies of the aurora, or Northern Lights
as we call them today. His theory was that these wonderful dancing displays
of atmospheric light at Earth’s high latitudes were fundamentally caused by
electrical currents coming from the Sun which interacted with the ionised gas
(plasma) layer that exists outside our breathable atmosphere.
In science, however, times had changed from the openly cooperative days,
and so Birkeland attracted some critics, especially from within theoretical
physics and mathematics. Nevertheless, he stuck to his guns and on every
occasion that called for it got his hands dirty by attempting to prove what he
viewed as good science and sound logic. He preferred this practical approach
rather than sitting behind a desk in a warm office theorising, like some of his
detractors were happy doing.
Birkeland took his theory of auroras initiated by the Sun’s power to another level when in his laboratory he built
a miniature model of the Earth with an electromagnet inside it and placed that complete assembly within an
enclosure that could be filled with a powerful electric field. When he switched the apparatus on, his mini-Earth,
or Terrella as it was known, produced glowing rings around both its north and south poles, just like we see with
auroras at the poles on Earth, and which interestingly, we now have observed on Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and
Neptune as well. He had demonstrated that his theory worked; all that was needed from that point was proof of
an electrical charge flowing toward Earth from the Sun.
3 | The work of the honourable but ignored
Benjamin Franklin
Professor Kristian Birkeland
Norwegian 200 Kroner Banknote