A Beginner's View of Our Electric Universe - New

Birkeland’s name will be remembered for many reasons, despite his work and ideas being ignored by narrowminded
people. As a scientist of achievement he came close to being awarded the Nobel Prize at the time of
his death, but unfortunately, this did not happen in time. However, two things were eventually done to honour
and remember him; a crater on the Moon was named after him and his image appeared on the Norwegian 200
Kroner bank note.
Dr Irving Langmuir (1881 – 1957) [5-2]
A highly successful American scientist who worked in chemistry then later
in electrical and plasma science. Here is a man who among other things, was
responsible for discovering the important ‘Double Layer’ (DL) effect in plasma.
This DL feature becomes apparent when an electric current flows between a
charged body and the surrounding plasma. An ‘isolating double layer barrier’ is
formed that insulates the charged body from that plasma. It is sometimes called a
"Langmuir sheath." The DL is like the internal structure of the capacitor I mentioned
in chapter four, where two electric charges are separated by an insulator. The DL
is a fundamental and important concept for plasma science and it is one that has
great relevance within the theories I go on to describe. It was also Langmuir who
coined the term ‘Plasma’, probably as his way of representing what he knew the
behaviour of blood to be in our own bodies as it forms a protective barrier to
defend against foreign bodies. He would have been in a unique position to draw
this analogy due to his previous work in field of chemistry.
5 | The work of the honourable but ignored
The arrangement of a Double Layer @ author
Irving Langmuir
Another conclusion he drew because of his experience
in chemistry and electrical science was that plasma
could not be understood or treated under the same rules
as apply to normal gases. The tendency to do this had
previously been the standard approach of uninformed
science, so wrong assumptions had been made about
the special role plasma actually plays. This shows up
science’s understanding of plasma at the time, which
at best, seems to have been rudimentary.