Hannes Alfven, 86, Founder Of Field in Physics, Is Dead (original) (raw)
Hannes Alfven, 86, Founder Of Field in Physics, Is Dead
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- April 5, 1995
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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April 5, 1995
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Section B, Page
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Hannes Alfven, a Nobel laureate who was largely responsible for founding a field of study that figures in many aspects of physics, died Sunday night at his home in Djursholm, Sweden. He was 86.
His death occurred after a bout of influenza, according to the University of California at San Diego, where he was a part-time professor.
The specialty for which Dr. Alfven (pronounced ALL-vain) shared a Nobel Prize in 1970 is the study of electrically conducting fluids moving in a magnetic field. Known as magnetohydrodynamics, or MHD, it occurs in stars, ionized gases and even liquid metals.
In 1942 he predicted that magnetic field lines in a plasma, like stretched rubber bands, could transmit a wave. At first this idea was ridiculed, but such phenomena were eventually observed and came to be known as Alfven waves. In earth-bound physics and astrophysics, they can act as major particle accelerators.
Recognition of his pivotal role was slow in coming. After Dr. Alfven received the 1970 Nobel award in physics, which he shared with Louis Neal of France, Alexander J. Dessler, a leading astrophysicist at Rice University in Houston, said that earlier, despite Dr. Alfven's "massive contributions" to science, his ideas were dismissed or treated with condescension.
"He was often forced to publish his papers in obscure journals," Dr. Dessler said, and he was continually disputed by other specialists in his field of research. In 1939, Dr. Alfven wrote a theory of magnetic storms and the auroral displays in the atmosphere that strongly influenced thinking on those subjects 30 years later, but with little recognition of its origin, Dr. Dessler said.
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