Plasmas

DEC 01, 1969

This “fourth state of matter” offers an immense variety of physical phenomena. Applications are tentative, but surprisingly widespread.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3035293

Harold Grad

THE TENOR OF OUR TIMES is receptive to a very young science that claims dominion over 99% of the matter in the universe, proposes to fuel a cross‐country auto trip with the deuterium from one gallon of sea water, offers to replace the magic of catalysis in polymer chemistry with precise knob turning, promises to alleviate the pollution problem by instant vaporization of waste and garbage, ventures to propel space ships and essays a role in cosmology. Even though these specific future applications of plasma physics are not proven, the potentialities of plasma, the “fourth state” of matter, are difficult to overstate.

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References

1. E. Wigner, “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences,” Communications on Pure and Applied Math., 13, 1 (1960).

More about the authors

Harold Grad, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.