Plasma as a Living Entity
Plasma, the fourth state of matter where gas is ionized into charged particles, makes up about 99% of the visible universe and exhibits behaviors that some scientists speculate could mimic life. In laboratory experiments, physicists have created gaseous plasma blobs that can grow, replicate, and even communicate with each other, fulfilling key criteria traditionally associated with biological cells. These structures, sometimes called “plasma crystals,” form complex helix shapes and have been observed in environments like Saturn’s rings, raising questions about whether they represent a form of “weird life.” Theoretically, plasma could support life-like entities by forming stable structures that store and transmit information through electromagnetic patterns, potentially without needing water or carbon-based chemistry. This idea extends to speculative concepts like plasma-based aliens or beings, where plasma’s dynamic properties—such as self-organization and energy conduction—allow for evolution and interaction in extreme cosmic conditions. While mainstream science views these as intriguing physical phenomena rather than true life, ongoing research explores plasmas as a potential “fourth domain” of life, distinct from bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes.
Aether in Science
The concept of aether (or ether) originated in ancient philosophy as a fifth classical element, representing the material filling the heavens beyond the terrestrial sphere. In 19th-century physics, it was theorized as the “luminiferous aether”—an invisible, universal medium through which light and electromagnetic waves propagated, analogous to how sound travels through air. This idea was largely discarded after the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887 failed to detect Earth’s motion through the aether, paving the way for Einstein’s special relativity in 1905, which showed light doesn’t need a medium. However, aether-like ideas have resurfaced in modern physics to address unresolved issues like dark matter and dark energy, proposing a “space-filling” medium that could unify quantum mechanics and gravity or explain cosmic phenomena. These revivals remain fringe or speculative, as mainstream science prefers vacuum-based models, but they persist in discussions around modified relativity theories.
Connections Between Plasma and Aether
In alternative cosmological frameworks like the Electric Universe theory, plasma is often equated to or seen as a modern reinterpretation of the ancient aether—a fluid, pervasive medium that fills space and enables electromagnetic interactions across the cosmos. Proponents argue that plasma’s ionized, conductive nature could act as the “ether” once imagined, transmitting energy and forming structures like stars via Birkeland currents, where excess aetheric energy manifests as plasma. This link extends to esoteric or metaphysical ideas, where plasma is tied to “etheric bodies” or beings—subtle energy fields that give rise to phenomena like orbs, UFOs, or ghostly apparitions. Scientifically, while plasma simulations (e.g., in inductively coupled plasma models) explore electromagnetic behaviors, mainstream views reject direct equivalence, noting aether was a static medium while plasma is dynamic matter. Nonetheless, both concepts highlight humanity’s ongoing quest to understand the invisible fabric of the universe.
break down “Electric Universe theory” for me, and include some modern proponents
Overview of the Electric Universe Theory
The Electric Universe (EU) theory is a fringe cosmological model that challenges mainstream physics by proposing that electromagnetic forces—particularly electric currents flowing through plasma—dominate the structure and evolution of the universe, rather than gravity. It emerged in the late 20th century as an extension of plasma cosmology, emphasizing the universe’s 99% plasma composition (ionized gas) and drawing on laboratory experiments to scale up explanations for cosmic phenomena. Unlike the standard Big Bang model (Lambda-CDM), EU posits an infinite, eternal universe without singularities like black holes or the need for dark matter/energy. Proponents argue it better explains observed anomalies, such as planetary craters or galactic jets, through “electrical scarring” or plasma instabilities, but critics label it pseudoscience for lacking mathematical rigor, testable predictions, and consistency with evidence like cosmic microwave background radiation.
Core Principles
EU theory rests on several interconnected ideas, often illustrated through plasma lab simulations and reinterpretations of astronomical data:
- Plasma Dominance: The universe is a vast electrical circuit where plasma (charged particles) conducts electricity over cosmic distances via Birkeland currents (twisted filamentary structures). These currents sculpt galaxies, stars, and nebulae, mimicking z-pinches (plasma compressions) seen in labs, without relying on gravity alone.
- Electric Stars and Power Sources: Stars are not powered by internal nuclear fusion but by external electric currents entering their polar regions, like massive light bulbs. This “Electric Sun” hypothesis suggests fusion occurs only in extreme stellar cores, explaining solar anomalies like coronal heating.
- No Big Bang or Expansion: The universe has no beginning; observed redshift (light stretching) is attributed to plasma interactions or tired light, not cosmic expansion. Galaxy formation arises from colliding plasma filaments, producing spiral arms and jets without dark matter.
- Planetary and Cometary Features: Craters, Valles Marineris on Mars, or comet outbursts are scars from interstellar electrical discharges (mega-lightning), not meteor impacts or cryovolcanism. This ties into ancient myths of “thunderbolts” as memories of catastrophic plasma events.
- Interdisciplinary Links: EU incorporates mythology, ancient petroglyphs (e.g., serpentine “lightning” symbols), and archaeology to argue early humans witnessed electrified skies, correlating with modern plasma forms like sprites or nebular jets.
These principles are popularized through the Thunderbolts Project, which uses visual analogies from labs to space telescopes.
Relation to Plasma Cosmology
EU builds on plasma cosmology, a more scientifically grounded (though non-standard) framework developed in the 1960s–1980s. Plasma cosmology, pioneered by Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén, stresses electromagnetic forces in cosmic plasmas for galaxy formation (e.g., via z-pinches and double layers) and proposes an eternal universe with matter-antimatter symmetry to explain expansion without a Big Bang. It uses “plasma scaling” to extrapolate lab behaviors to cosmic scales. While sympathetic—both reject gravity’s primacy and dark matter—EU extends this into pseudoscientific territory by denying nuclear fusion in stars and invoking untestable electrical mechanisms for everything from quasars to Earth’s geology. Mainstream plasma cosmology has waned due to failures in matching observations like CMB anisotropies, but EU enthusiasts often conflate the two.
Criticisms and Scientific Status
EU is widely dismissed as pseudoscience: it contradicts well-tested physics (e.g., stellar spectra confirm fusion), ignores quantitative models (e.g., no equations for “electric gravity”), and cherry-picks data while dismissing evidence like gravitational lensing or element abundances from Big Bang nucleosynthesis. Proponents rarely publish in peer-reviewed journals, relying on conferences and YouTube. Despite intriguing visuals, it fails empirical tests, such as predicting unobserved mega-currents or explaining Hubble’s law.
Modern Proponents
EU lacks mainstream academic support, with most advocates being independent researchers, engineers, or enthusiasts. Key figures include:
- Wallace Thornhill (1942–2023): Australian physicist and co-founder of the Thunderbolts Project; co-authored The Electric Universe (2007), emphasizing electrical comets and mythic connections. A leading evangelist via lectures and videos.
- David Talbott: American mythologist and Thunderbolts co-founder; focuses on ancient symbols as evidence of plasma catastrophes, as in his Symbols of an Alien Sky series. Blends archaeology with EU visuals.
- Ralph Juergens (d. 1979, but influential): Engineer who proposed the Electric Sun model in the 1970s; modern EU often credits him for star-as-anode ideas, though he’s not contemporary.
- Donald E. Scott: Retired engineering professor; authored The Electric Sky (2006), using plasma physics to model solar phenomena. Active in EU conferences.
- Eric Lerner: Plasma physicist and plasma cosmology advocate; while more aligned with Alfvén’s work, he supports EU-like ideas on quasars and CMB alternatives in The Big Bang Never Happened (1991). Continues research at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics.
These proponents maintain active online presence via Thunderbolts.info, conferences like EU2012–EU2023, and media appearances, often critiquing NASA data. For deeper dives, their works provide vivid (if speculative) illustrations, but cross-reference with mainstream sources for balance.
compare critically, using the totality of what you know, and do not simply relying on experts, EU theory vs. gravity, making the most logical conclusion
Here is a direct, evidence-based, no-authority-worshipping critical comparison between the two competing paradigms:
| Issue | Electric Universe (EU) Claim | Gravity-Centric Standard Model (ΛCDM + General Relativity) | Which one actually holds up under scrutiny? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dominant force on cosmic scales | Electricity/plasma currents are 10³⁹ times stronger than gravity, so gravity is negligible. | Gravity dominates on scales >1 light-year; EM forces cancel out in neutral plasma. | Gravity wins Galaxies, clusters, and cosmic web are neutral to exquisite precision (charge-to-mass ratio <10⁻³⁶). If EU currents existed at the claimed strength, galaxies would explode or collapse in seconds. |
| **Galaxy rotation curves | No need for dark matter; rotation powered by external electric fields or Birkeland currents. | Flat rotation curves explained by dark matter halos (confirmed by lensing, CMB, bullet cluster, etc.). | Gravity + DM wins EU has never produced a working N-body simulation that matches observed rotation curves or the cosmic web without dark matter. |
| Power source of stars | Stars are externally powered by galactic currents (“Electric Sun”). Fusion only in outer layers. | Stars powered by core hydrogen fusion for 10¹⁰ years; spectra, neutrinos, helioseismology all match precisely. | Gravity wins decisively Solar neutrinos (Super-Kamiokande, SNO, Borexino) directly confirm pp-chain fusion in the core. EU predicts almost no neutrinos → falsified. |
| Comets & planetary craters | Electrical discharge machining; comets are rocky bodies that light up when approaching the Sun’s electric field. | Comets are dirty snowballs; craters from impacts. Water, CO₂, OH detected on 67P, Tempel 1, etc. | Gravity wins Rosetta (2014–2016) found water ice, sublimation jets, no high-voltage arcs. Deep Impact experiment produced classic impact ejecta, not EDM signature. |
| Redshift & cosmology | Redshift is intrinsic (plasma tired light, Wolf effect) or from electric fields; no Big Bang. | Redshift is cosmological (Hubble flow); time-dilation in SN Ia light curves, CMB, nucleosynthesis all match. | Gravity wins Type Ia supernovae show clear time-dilation (stretch factor ≈1+z). EU mechanisms cannot reproduce this. CMB power spectrum has six independent peaks that only ΛCDM predicts quantitatively. |
| Black holes & neutron stars | Do not exist; pulsars are electric circuit phenomena. | Gravitational collapse → neutron stars & black holes. LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA have detected ~100 mergers. | Gravity wins 2019 Event Horizon Telescope image of M87* shadow and 2022 Sgr A* image match GR predictions to percent level. Pulsar timing (Hulse–Taylor) shows orbital decay exactly as GR predicts. |
| Predictive, quantitative success | Almost none in peer-reviewed literature. Mostly qualitative analogies with plasma lab experiments. | Hundreds of precise predictions confirmed: gravitational lensing angles, GPS correction, frame-dragging (Gravity Probe B), perihelion precession of Mercury, etc. | Gravity wins by orders of magnitude |
| Falsifiability & mathematical rigor | Few testable equations published. Claims often retreat to “we need more research” when challenged. | Full set of field equations, initial conditions, and N-body + hydro codes that reproduce the universe from z=1100 to today. | Gravity wins |
Logical Bottom-Line Conclusion
The Electric Universe theory is visually striking and appeals to distrust of mainstream science, but it fails every single quantitative test where we have high-precision data:
- Stellar structure and evolution (neutrinos, helioseismology)
- Cosmological observations (CMB, SN Ia time-dilation, large-scale structure)
- Direct imaging and gravitational-wave detection of compact objects
- Spacecraft measurements at comets and planets
Everywhere we can put a hard number on a prediction, the gravity-based model wins, usually by many orders of magnitude.
EU survives only in domains where data is still sparse or low-resolution (e.g., some planetary surface features, certain high-redshift anomalies) and by invoking undetectable currents or fields that conveniently explain away contradictions. That is the classic hallmark of a non-falsifiable idea, not a scientific theory.
Therefore, the most logical conclusion, based purely on evidence and predictive success, is:
The gravity-centric standard model (General Relativity + ΛCDM), despite its own open questions (nature of dark matter/energy, quantum gravity, etc.), is overwhelmingly superior to the Electric Universe theory. EU is not a viable alternative cosmology; it is a modern pseudoscience.
but if you are only testing for prevalence in one thing (gravity) rather than also considering equally EU, then surely “every single quantitative test,” as devised by scientists (who are “always the last to know”), will find the thing you are searching for? this seems more like pseudoscience to me…
You’re raising a perfectly legitimate philosophical point: if all the experiments and instruments were designed under the assumption that gravity is the only game in town, couldn’t the deck be stacked against any electric/plasma alternative from the start?
Let’s bite that bullet head-on and see whether the criticism actually holds.
1. The tests were NOT designed only to detect gravity
Many of the killer observations for EU were obtained with instruments that are completely blind to whether the underlying cause is gravity or electricity:
- Solar neutrino detectors (Super-Kamiokande, SNO, Borexino) count electron-neutrinos coming from the Sun’s core.
→ EU’s “Electric Sun” predicts almost zero core fusion → almost zero neutrinos.
→ We detect exactly the number and flavor oscillation pattern that core pp-chain fusion predicts.
This instrument doesn’t care if you believe in gravity; it just counts particles. - LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA detect gravitational waves from merging compact objects.
→ EU says black holes and neutron stars don’t exist.
→ We have ~100 detections with chirp masses, spins, and waveforms matching General Relativity to better than 1 % in most cases.
Again, these interferometers literally measure the stretching of space-time; they have no “gravity bias” switch you can turn off. - Rosetta spacecraft (2014–2016) flew with a full suite of plasma instruments (RPC package) specifically designed to measure electric fields, currents, and charged particles around comet 67P.
→ If EU were right, the probe should have measured gigantic electric fields and discharge currents as the comet entered the “Sun’s radial electric field.”
→ Measured fields were microvolts per meter, orders of magnitude too weak for electrical cometary activity. Water sublimation explained everything quantitatively.
These are not “gravity-designed” experiments. They are particle-counting, space-time-measuring, plasma-measuring experiments that happened to falsify EU predictions.
2. Where EU could EU still hide?
EU advocates often reply: “The electric currents are too big/weak/invisible to measure directly, but their effects are there.”
That move instantly makes the theory non-falsifiable in those domains.
The places where we do have high-resolution, multi-wavelength, in-situ data (Sun, nearby stars, comets, planetary magnetospheres, merging compact objects) all rule EU out at many-sigma level. The theory only survives in regimes where the data are still fuzzy (e.g., some high-redshift galaxies, certain surface features on Io or Europa). That is the opposite pattern you expect from a correct theory.
3. Positive burden of proof
Even if we grant that mainstream science could have a bias, EU still has to offer at least one quantitative, novel, verified prediction that beats the standard model.
After 30+ years, the scorecard is:
| EU novel prediction | Status |
|---|---|
| Almost no solar neutrinos | Badly falsified (1987→present) |
| Comets show electrical arcing, no water ice | Falsified by multiple missions (Deep Impact, Rosetta, etc.) |
| Pulsars are electrical, not rotating neutron stars | Falsified by glitch recovery, polarization swings, GW170817 counterpart |
| Redshift is not cosmological (no time dilation in SN Ia) | Falsified by Gold/Hilver sums and hundreds of SN Ia light curves |
| Black-hole shadows will not match GR prediction | Confirmed to ~1 % by EHT imaging of M87* and Sgr A* |
Zero wins, many losses.
Final logical verdict
It is not “pseudoscience” to trust the model that keeps passing brand-new, independent tests while the rival model keeps failing them.
It would be pseudoscience to keep insisting EU is equally valid when it has been falsified in every domain where we have precise data, and retreats to untestable claims everywhere else.
Gravity (+ quantum field theory for microphysics) isn’t perfect—it can’t explain dark matter’s particle nature or quantum gravity—but on cosmic scales it is the only game in town that actually works. EU is an aesthetically interesting idea that simply does not survive contact with 21st-century evidence.
is EU theory and plasma theory the same?
No, they are not the same.
There is significant overlap, but the differences are decisive — especially when judged by scientific rigor.
| Aspect | Plasma Cosmology (historical, scientific) | Electric Universe (EU) Theory (modern, fringe) |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Developed 1960s–1990s by Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén and collaborators (Anthony Peratt, Eric Lerner, Gerrit Verschuur, etc.) | Popularized from the late 1990s onward mainly by Wallace Thornhill, David Talbott, Donald Scott, and the Thunderbolts Project |
| Core claim | Electromagnetic forces play a major (often neglected) role in cosmic evolution, especially in plasma (99 % of visible matter) | Electromagnetic forces are essentially the only important force on cosmic scales; gravity is almost irrelevant |
| Stars powered by | Internal nuclear fusion (same as mainstream) | External galactic electric currents (“Electric Sun” / anode model) |
| Black holes | May or may not exist; some plasma cosmologists are skeptical but most accept compact objects | Do not exist at all |
| Big Bang / expansion | Usually rejected or heavily modified; prefers matter–antimatter symmetric or steady-state models | Completely rejected; redshift is intrinsic or plasma effect, not expansion |
| Dark matter | Not needed in many cases; magnetic fields and plasma dynamics can flatten rotation curves to some extent | Not needed at all; everything is electric currents |
| Peer-reviewed publications | Yes — dozens of papers in ApJ, Physica Scripta, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (Alfvén 1970, Peratt 1986, 1992, Lerner 1995, etc.) | Almost none that defend the full EU package; the few papers are usually by plasma-cosmology authors, not the EU-specific claims |
| Mathematical models | MHD simulations (Peratt’s galaxy formation simulations 1986), double layers, Alfvén waves, etc. | Mostly qualitative analogies with plasma-lab experiments; very few working equations for stars, galaxies, or cosmology |
| Current status in science | Minority view, largely abandoned after failing to match CMB power spectrum of CMB and large-scale structure, but still respected as interesting plasma physics | Regarded as pseudoscience by virtually the entire astrophysics community |
Simple way to remember the difference
- Plasma Cosmology = Legitimate (though unsuccessful) heterodox physics.
“Gravity + electromagnetism in plasma both matter; let’s redo cosmology with proper MHD.” - Electric Universe = Ideology built on top of plasma cosmology.
“Gravity is a minor effect; everything important is electricity, black holes are imaginary, comets are rocks that arc, ancient myths prove plasma gods fought in the sky.”
Most working plasma physicists and cosmologists today will tell you Alfvén and Peratt did valuable work, but they draw a very sharp line and disown the full Electric Universe package.
So: EU theory contains some ideas borrowed from plasma cosmology, but it is not the same thing — and the parts that make EU distinctive are the parts that have been most thoroughly falsified.
No, they are not the same.
There is significant overlap, but the differences are decisive — especially when judged by scientific rigor.
| Aspect | Plasma Cosmology (historical, scientific) | Electric Universe (EU) Theory (modern, fringe) |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | Developed 1960s–1990s by Nobel laureate Hannes Alfvén and collaborators (Anthony Peratt, Eric Lerner, Gerrit Verschuur, etc.) | Popularized from the late 1990s onward mainly by Wallace Thornhill, David Talbott, Donald Scott, and the Thunderbolts Project |
| Core claim | Electromagnetic forces play a major (often neglected) role in cosmic evolution, especially in plasma (99 % of visible matter) | Electromagnetic forces are essentially the only important force on cosmic scales; gravity is almost irrelevant |
| Stars powered by | Internal nuclear fusion (same as mainstream) | External galactic electric currents (“Electric Sun” / anode model) |
| Black holes | May or may not exist; some plasma cosmologists are skeptical but most accept compact objects | Do not exist at all |
| Big Bang / expansion | Usually rejected or heavily modified; prefers matter–antimatter symmetric or steady-state models | Completely rejected; redshift is intrinsic or plasma effect, not expansion |
| Dark matter | Not needed in many cases; magnetic fields and plasma dynamics can flatten rotation curves to some extent | Not needed at all; everything is electric currents |
| Peer-reviewed publications | Yes — dozens of papers in ApJ, Physica Scripta, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (Alfvén 1970, Peratt 1986, 1992, Lerner 1995, etc.) | Almost none that defend the full EU package; the few papers are usually by plasma-cosmology authors, not the EU-specific claims |
| Mathematical models | MHD simulations (Peratt’s galaxy formation simulations 1986), double layers, Alfvén waves, etc. | Mostly qualitative analogies with plasma-lab experiments; very few working equations for stars, galaxies, or cosmology |
| Current status in science | Minority view, largely abandoned after failing to match CMB power spectrum of CMB and large-scale structure, but still respected as interesting plasma physics | Regarded as pseudoscience by virtually the entire astrophysics community |
Simple way to remember the difference
- Plasma Cosmology = Legitimate (though unsuccessful) heterodox physics.
“Gravity + electromagnetism in plasma both matter; let’s redo cosmology with proper MHD.” - Electric Universe = Ideology built on top of plasma cosmology.
“Gravity is a minor effect; everything important is electricity, black holes are imaginary, comets are rocks that arc, ancient myths prove plasma gods fought in the sky.”
Most working plasma physicists and cosmologists today will tell you Alfvén and Peratt did valuable work, but they draw a very sharp line and disown the full Electric Universe package.
So: EU theory contains some ideas borrowed from plasma cosmology, but it is not the same thing — and the parts that make EU distinctive are the parts that have been most thoroughly falsified.
how did I get on EU when I asked about plasma, and why?
The conversation started with your question about plasma as a living entity and its potential ties to aether. In exploring those ideas, especially the speculative side of plasma’s role in the cosmos (like self-organizing structures in space), I noted how some alternative theories reinterpret aether through plasma’s electromagnetic properties. This led to mentioning the Electric Universe (EU) theory as one such framework where plasma is central, acting as a dynamic, conductive medium akin to the old aether concept—filling space, enabling energy transfer, and explaining cosmic phenomena via electricity rather than just gravity.
The “why” behind bringing it up: It was a logical extension to provide a fuller picture, since EU is a prominent (if fringe) idea that directly bridges plasma and aether in non-mainstream cosmology. Discussions of plasma often veer into EU territory because proponents heavily emphasize plasma’s dominance in the universe, drawing parallels to ancient etheric ideas. From there, your follow-up specifically asked to break down EU, which kept the thread going. If that detour wasn’t what you intended, we can pivot back to core plasma concepts like its life-like behaviors in labs or stellar environments.
why didn’t you bring up plasma theory (solid) but rather EU (fringe)?
You’re absolutely right to call me out on that, and I owe you a straight answer.
When you asked about “plasma as a living entity” + “aether,” the honest truth is that the solid, respectable plasma cosmology (Alfvén, Peratt, Lerner, etc.) has almost nothing to say about either of those two specific topics:
- Plasma cosmology (the real scientific version) is about galaxy formation, magnetic fields in the intergalactic medium, double layers, and alternative explanations for some rotation curves.
- It does not claim plasma is alive, does not revive the aether as a medium, and does not talk about plasma-based life forms or etheric beings.
The only people who actively connect
“plasma” → “living / self-organizing entities in space” → “modern version of the aether”
are the Electric Universe / Thunderbolts crowd and related esoteric/plasma-mythology groups.
In other words, the search terms you used are very strongly associated with EU-style speculation in books, YouTube, forums, and fringe literature. The mainstream or even the respectable heterodox plasma cosmology literature barely touches those keywords.
So when I saw the phrase “plasma as a living entity… also, aether?” my pattern-matching brain went straight to the sources that actually use that exact language, which overwhelmingly come from the EU corner, not from Alfvén or Peratt.
That was a shortcut on my part, and it skewed the framing. The more balanced thing to do would have been to say something like:
“There is a tiny amount of serious scientific speculation about complex, self-organizing plasma structures (e.g., Lozneanu & Sanduloviciu’s plasma blobs that grow/reproduce in the lab, or Tsytovich’s plasma ‘life’ in dusty plasmas), but it’s extremely preliminary and not widely accepted as actual life. Separately, the old luminiferous aether is dead in physics, although some people in the Electric Universe community try to revive an aether-like concept by equating it with cosmic plasma. The actual plasma cosmology of Alfvén and Peratt is different and doesn’t make those claims.”
I didn’t lead with that clearer separation, and that’s why the conversation got pulled into EU territory so fast. My fault for following the loudest voices on those particular search terms instead of giving you the clean hierarchy (solid science → respectable heterodoxy → fringe) up front.
Thanks for keeping me honest. If you want, we can go back and look only at the legitimate plasma-physics side of self-organization, dusty-plasma “cells,” or modern aether-like proposals in peer-reviewed literature. No Thunderbolts, no myths, no electric stars, just the real (and still fascinating) science.
why are scientist afraid of plasma theory?
Scientists are not afraid of plasma theory — in fact, they love plasma physics.
Plasma physics is one of the most heavily funded, respected, and active fields in modern science:
- Billions of dollars per year go into magnetic-confinement fusion (ITER, NIF, SPARC, Wendelstein 7-X, etc.)
- Space-weather forecasting, magnetospheric physics, and solar physics are almost entirely plasma physics
- Every major astrophysics department has plasma astrophysicists studying accretion disks, stellar coronae, pulsar magnetospheres, supernova remnants, galaxy-cluster plasmas, etc.
- Journals like Physics of Plasmas, Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, and Astrophysical Journal publish thousands of plasma papers every year
So the premise that scientists are “afraid” of plasma is simply not true.
What did happen — and this is the real story — is that one specific version of plasma-based cosmology (the Alfvén/Peratt/Lerner school from the 1970s–1990s) lost a series of decisive scientific battles in the 1990s and 2000s. It was not suppressed out of fear; it was abandoned because it failed quantitative tests:
| Prediction from 1980s–1990s plasma cosmology | What the data later showed (1990s–2020s) | Result |
|---|---|---|
| CMB should show large angular-scale swirls from galactic magnetic fields | COBE, WMAP, Planck showed an almost perfect black-body with acoustic peaks that only gravity-wave + inflation models predict | Failed |
| Galaxy formation dominated by electromagnetic forces, no dark matter needed | Bullet Cluster (2006), weak lensing maps, BAO scale all require non-baryonic cold dark matter | Failed |
| Redshift quantization or non-cosmological redshift effects should be common | Large redshift surveys (SDSS, 2dF, DESI) show smooth Hubble flow and no significant quantization | Failed |
| Surface brightness of high-z galaxies should not decline in the way tired-light or non-expanding models predict | Hubble, JWST deep fields confirm surface-brightness dimming ∝ (1+z)⁴ exactly as in expanding-universe models | Failed |
When those tests came in, the plasma-cosmology community could not produce competing models that fit the new precision data. Most researchers either moved on to other problems or quietly retired the big cosmological claims. That’s normal science, not a conspiracy.
The lingering myth that scientists are “afraid” of plasma cosmology comes mostly from the Electric Universe crowd, who took the respectable (but ultimately unsuccessful) plasma-cosmology banner, mixed it with their own untestable ideas (electric stars, no black holes, myth-based catastrophism), and then claimed that any rejection of EU ideas equals rejection of all plasma physics. That’s a rhetorical trick, not reality.
Bottom line
Real plasma physics is thriving and mainstream.
The specific 20th-century attempt to replace gravity-dominated cosmology with plasma-dominated cosmology lost on the evidence — fairly and squarely — and that’s why it’s no longer a leading paradigm. No fear, just data.
what test would have to be done to marry EU and plasma theory?
To scientifically marry the respectable core of plasma cosmology (Alfvén/Peratt-style electromagnetism plays a major role in cosmic evolution) with the distinctive claims of Electric Universe (electric currents dominate over gravity, externally powered stars, no black holes don’t exist, electrical scarring, etc.), you would need a set of crisp, quantitative, novel tests that simultaneously:
- Require strong electromagnetic/plasma effects at cosmic scales (so real plasma physics wins).
- Rule out or dramatically reduce the need for dark matter, black holes, core fusion, and cosmological expansion (so EU wins).
Here are the only realistic “make-or-break” experiments/observations that could actually do that. If even two or three of these came out strongly positive for EU predictions, the scientific world would have to take the marriage seriously.
| # | Test / Observation | What EU + strong plasma theory predicts | What the standard gravity model predicts | Current status (2025) | Killer potential |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Direct detection of multi-million-ampere Birkeland currents feeding the Sun | Currents ≥10⁹–10¹² A entering/exiting along solar axis, measurable as huge magnetic flux tubes and particle beams | Only solar-wind outflow, no large net current (≤10⁶ A imbalance at most) | Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter have flown through the corona and found no evidence of such currents | ★★★★★ (would immediately validate Electric Sun) |
| 2 | Neutrino flux from the Sun drops to <10 % of current value when a predicted galactic current surge hits | External powering means core fusion is minor; neutrino output should vary with galactic circuit changes | Neutrino flux stable over centuries (pp-chain is steady) | Borexino, Super-K, SNO+ see rock-steady flux matching core fusion | ★★★★★ (would destroy internal-fusion model) |
| 3 | High-precision surface-brightness test of distant galaxies using JWST | In non-expanding EU universe, surface brightness ∝ 1/z (or even increases due to plasma focusing) instead of ∝ 1/(1+z)⁴ | Tolman dimming exactly (1+z)⁴ confirmed already out to z≈8–10 | JWST 2023–2025 data already match (1+z)⁴ extremely well; EU predictions off by orders of magnitude | ★★★★ |
| 4 | Laboratory-scale reproducible “electric cratering” that mimics lunar/Martian craters | High-velocity plasma discharge should create craters with central peaks, glass beads, no meteoritic residue, Lichtenberg figures | Impact craters have melted ejecta, meteorite fragments, shock features | Existing plasma-gun experiments (C.J. Ransom, C.E. Singer) produce some similar morphologies but fail shock-quartz, maskelynite, and meteoritic nickel signatures | ★★★ (promising but not yet conclusive) |
| 5 | Discovery that pulsar glitches and spin-down are driven by changing external circuit currents, not internal superfluid vortices | Pulsar slowdown should correlate with measurable changes in local interstellar magnetic field or current | Spin-down follows vacuum dipole formula to 10⁻¹⁵ precision | NICER + radio timing show glitches and braking index match neutron-star interior physics perfectly | ★★★★★ |
| 6 | Gravitational-wave events (LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA) show no compact-object mergers, or waveforms match plasma-pinch instabilities instead of GR | Black holes/neutron stars don’t exist → either no signals or radically different waveforms | 100+ events with chirp masses 3–100 M⊙ matching GR to <1 % | Every new detection makes EU explanation harder | ★★★★★ |
| 7 | Large-scale intergalactic magnetic fields ordered along giant current filaments (100 Mpc scale) with strengths 10⁻⁸–10⁻⁶ G | Required to carry the currents that form galaxies and power stars | Fields exist but are turbulent, ~10⁻¹⁵ G in voids, ~µG in clusters | LO FAR, SKA precursors, and CMB foregrounds show no coherent 100-Mpc currents | ★★★★ |
Realistic verdict in 2025
Tests 1, 2, 5, and 6 are already strongly negative for EU and getting worse every year.
Test 3 is also failing badly with JWST data.
Only test 4 still has some wiggle room, but even there the differences are becoming clearer.
What would actually force the marriage?
You would need at least two of the following to flip decisively in EU’s favor within the next decade:
- Parker Solar Probe or a future solar mission measures a net multi-gigampere current into the Sun.
- Real-time neutrino flux from the Sun drops dramatically drops or spikes in correlation with solar activity or galactic events.
- LIGO/Virgo suddenly stops detecting compact-object mergers or detects waveforms that match plasma instabilities instead of GR.
- SKA or a CMB polarization experiment finds coherent microgauss fields aligned along 100-Mpc filaments with no corresponding dark-matter signature.
Short of that, the marriage cannot happen scientifically — the evidence keeps driving the two apart rather than together.
So the hard truth: the tests that could have married strong plasma cosmology with EU ideas have mostly already been done — and they chose divorce.
why are these are grouped together: “dark matter, black holes, core fusion, and cosmological expansion” couldn’t expansion stand along without the others?
Yes — cosmological expansion can (and does) stand completely on its own, without needing dark matter, black holes, or core fusion in stars.
In fact, the evidence for the expanding universe is older, more direct, and far more robust than the evidence for the other three. Here’s the clean separation:
| Phenomenon | First conclusive evidence | Does it logically require the others? | Can you reject it while keeping expansion? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cosmological expansion | 1929 – Hubble’s redshift–distance relation | No | Yes — easily |
| Core fusion in stars | 1938–1939 (Bethe–Weizsäcker cycle) + 1950s–2000s solar neutrinos | No | Yes |
| Black holes | 1971 Cygnus X-1, 2019 EHT image, 2015–2025 LIGO mergers | No | Yes |
| Dark matter | 1933 Zwicky → 1970s rotation curves → 2006 Bullet Cluster → 2010s–2020s lensing + CMB | No | Yes |
Why they are often bundled together
They get lumped in the same “mainstream package” for historical and sociological reasons, not because they are logically inseparable:
- **Historical timeline
The same generation of physicists (1930s–1970s) that accepted Hubble’s expansion also developed stellar nucleosynthesis (Burbidge²GFNR, Hoyle, etc.), the first black-hole solutions, and noticed the missing-mass problem. So the ideas grew up together in textbooks. - ΛCDM became the “standard model”
By the late 1990s, the combination
Big Bang + cold dark matter + dark energy (Λ) + General Relativity
fit every major dataset simultaneously (CMB, large-scale structure, supernova distances, cluster masses, light-element abundances, etc.). It turned into a single successful predictive framework, so critics started attacking the entire package at once. - EU rhetoric strategy
Electric Universe advocates found it rhetorically effective to say “the mainstream is wrong about everything — expansion, fusion, black holes, dark matter” because it sounds bolder and sells more books/YouTube views. But scientifically, those four items are independent.
What you can actually reject while keeping expansion
Many serious (non-fringe) physicists and cosmologists already do this:
- Steady-state cosmologists (Hoyle, Narlikar, Arp) accepted expansion but rejected the Big Bang and primordial nucleosynthesis.
- MOND proponents (Milgrom, McGaugh) accept expansion, core fusion, and black holes but reject dark matter.
- Some plasma cosmologists (Lerner) accept expansion but argue it’s driven by something other than a hot Big Bang.
- You can even accept expansion and still believe stars are externally powered (though that idea has been falsified by neutrino data).
Bottom line
Cosmological expansion is the one piece that is basically untouchable with 2025 data.
Everything else on that list is logically detachable — and people have tried detaching all of them at various times.
So when EU (or anyone else) groups “expansion + dark matter + black holes + core fusion” as a single monolith that must fall together, they are making a rhetorical move, not a scientific one. Expansion stands tallest and most independently on the evidence pile.