Hannes Alfvén

Swedish electrical engineer and plasma physicist, Nobel Prize laureate in Physics (1908–1995)

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About

Hannes Alfvén was a Swedish physicist and pioneer of magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). After earning his PhD at Uppsala in 1934, he became a professor at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in 1940. He discovered Alfvén waves in 1942, initially dismissed but later recognized. He shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics with Louis Néel for his fundamental work in MHD. A prolific author, he also wrote a science fiction novel under a pseudonym. An advocate for disarmament, he participated in the Pugwash Conferences.

* 1908-05-28 — † 1995-04-02

Major works

Cosmical Electrodynamics (1950)scientific monograph
The Great Computer: A Vision (1968)science fiction novel

Key milestones

1942Discovered Alfvén waves, published in Nature.
1970Shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Louis Néel.
1967Received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Themes

MagnetohydrodynamicsPlasma physicsCosmologyDisarmamentScience fiction

Sources: nobelprize.org · britannica.com · kth.se

“We have to learn again that science without contact with experiments is an enterprise which is likely to go completely astray into imaginary conjecture.”

— Hannes AlfvénTheme · Science

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“The history of science shows that theories which are not based on observations are often sterile.”

— Hannes AlfvénTheme · Science

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“I have never thought that you could obtain a revised conception of the universe by just sitting in a library and thinking.”

— Hannes AlfvénTheme · Science

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