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A Problem in Plasma Science

by Harold Aspden, Ph.D., FIEE, FIMechE, C.Eng, C.Phys

There is a quite serious problem that pervades the scientific theory relied upon in connection
with research involving plasma discharges and so having bearing upon nuclear fusion
experiments and even the interpretation of certain astrophysical phenomena. It arises from
leaving unresolved an issue raised by Clerk Maxwell in his Treatise on Electricity and
Magnetism and so dating back to the 19th century.

Equally serious is the problem of scientific academia today by which physicists publish their
ideas in numerous papers and in measure aimed solely at building their prowess and
justifying their position, but papers most of which add nothing of significance to our
knowledge base. Accordingly, university libraries tend to become poorly charted jungles in
which genuine contributions of worthy research are hidden and so pass unheeded.

That 'issue' raised by Clerk Maxwell was in fact resolved and recorded in that 'jungle' some
37 years ago and, thanks to the author, myself, being still alive to point to its location, this
item is now being remembered here on my website. I will below explain its importance.

The Sun and a Problem

We are told that the sun has a temperature of about 6000? and can verify that this is a
reasonable statement because we know the amount of solar heat radiation per square
centimeter per second that reaches us here on Earth and we have Stefan's radiation law as
determined from our laboratory experiments on radiation from hot bodies.

We are told that the sun's core has a temperature of over 100,000,000? but that cannot be
verified because it is founded solely on the assumption that the sun is powered by nuclear
fusion and that is said to require such a high temperature. The evidence gleaned from the
form of radiation said to comprise neutrinos is not a measure of temperature.

Yet we are also told that surrounding the sun there is a region we call the corona which is
said to have a temperature of 1,000,000? , inasmuch as the spectral lines of radiation
sourced in that region were found in 1942 to exhibit energy properties akin to those arising
from certain levels of electron transitions applicable to highly ionized iron atoms.

So the sun has three temperatures, none of which has actually been measured and all of
which are inferred, one from an actual measurement of energy radiation, one from analysis of
an energy spread in a spectral image and one from the mere imagination that the sun owes
its energy source to the process we associate with the hydrogen bomb.

The problem I have is in wondering how the sun's corona can be at 1,000,000? if the sun
within that corona has a surface temperature of 6,000?.

I think most readers will agree that understanding the deployment of energy in a plasma
composed of heavy ions and electrons, such as we have in the sun, is important and yet here
we have a blatant example of something accepted by the physics community that really does
not make sense. Are we to suppose that we are looking at tiny specks of sunlight emitted
from single atoms of iron that have a temperature of 1,000,000?, mixed in the background of
the sun's surface at 6,000?? Or might it be that we cannot just use Boltzmann's constant to
convert energy to temperature, assuming equipartition of energy between all ions of
whatever size, and thereby stay with common sense and assign the same temperature to all
components of that plasma but admit there is some process at work that deploys energy
unevenly? Why should we use gas laws formulated on the basis of there being no ionization
when interpreting phenomena exhibited by ionized plasma?

The case I now put is that the problem confronted by Clerk Maxwell, had it been resolved,
would have enlightened us on this important issue, one which has significant bearing upon
the current research in the field of nuclear fusion.

Plasma Electrodynamics
Maxwell was concerned that Ampere's law of electrodynamics might not be a valid
interpretation of experimental fact because it relied partly on empirical data and partly on
assumption. He addressed the options available. The key point was that it was known how
electric currents interact where one of the currents flows though wire around a closed circuit
but it was not known how two discrete electric charges in motion might interact as a function
of their motion. To define the law of force there had to be an assumption. Ampere had
assumed total balance of action and reaction but one can have total balance of action and
reaction for that closed circuit current condition without satisfying the precise formulation
specified by Ampere.

In today's terminology the Lorentz force law suffices and meets the necessary balance
criteria for such closed current circuit conditions, but an additional term, as formulated by
Maxwell, is needed to cover the general case and that still depends upon an assumption.
That additional term, expressed in vector form is simply:

(v.r)v' times ee'/r3,

where a charge e in motion at velocity v acts on a charge e' distant r from e and moving at
velocity v'. The effect of this term integrates to zero for the closed circuit current condition.

Maxwell realized that this additional term could have any factor, positive or negative, large or
small, and still comply with the empirical conditions. He opted for the factor being +1 because
he knew that this would give an overall formulation for which the two charges in motion could
interact without giving rise to an anomalous unidirectional net linear force that might suggest
the interaction induced a linear push on something.

Instead, though it was not mentioned, that would lead to the two-charge interaction itself
developing a turning couple as if it were exerting a twist action on that same something.
Ampere's law had avoided both of these possibilities.

Given the belief in the existence of an aether in Maxwell's time and the fact that the motion of
those charges is referenced on a frame of reference signifying a property of the aether, that
'something' did have a basis, one that could provide the balancing force along with the
associated energy.

Maxwell, in being concerned with formulating force action, was addressing a problem that
had important energy implications, but that seemingly escaped notice.

What I realized when I came onto the scene was that it would have been preferable for
Maxwell to opt for the version with the minus sign preceding that (v.r)v' term, simply because
that would avoid the twisting problem. Also, though introducing that out-of-balance net linear
force, I could see that such a formulation, for v parallel with v', would, in combination with the
Lorentz component, result in a law for which mutual force action between the charges was of
the simple inverse square of distance form acting along the line joining the charges.

Such a law made more sense especially as, at the time I discovered this, my thoughts were
on linking electromagnetism and gravity.

The formal analysis, however, then had to take account of the possible interaction of charges
of different mass, such as heavy ions interacting with electrons, and that added the factor
(m'/m), where m' is the mass of charge e' and m is the mass of charge e, these charges
being, of course, expressed in electromagnetic units.

My paper on this duly appeared in the library archives of universities in Journal of the
Franklin Institute, 287, 179 (1969) and there it sits gathering dust and serving no purpose
unless whoever reads this decides to check what I am saying in this web item.
Given that, just as Clerk Maxwell saw reason to question the law of electrodynamics
proposed by Ampere, I had good reason for going one step further and completing that task, I
cannot understand why physicists interested in plasma experiments have not embraced what
is surely the correct law.
Why is it that relevant? Well, just consider that term:

− (ee'/r3)(m'/m)(v.r)v'

and imagine m' is the mass of a heavy positive ion and m is the mass of an electron sitting in
an ionized plasma, be it that of the sun or that of a nuclear fusion reactor. Consider the
collective results of four types of interaction. (1) Slow moving ion with electron moving closer:
Ion gains speed slightly because ee' negative, v' small and v.r positive. (2) Slow moving ion
with electron moving away: Ion slows to even lower speed because ee' negative, v' small and
v.r negative. (3) Fast moving ion with electron moving closer: Ion speed escalates because
ee' negative, v' large and v.r positive. (4) Fast moving ion with electron moving away: Ion
loses speed rapidly because ee' negative, v' large and v.r negative.

The net effect of such charge interaction electrodynamically in a plasma must therefore be to
cause each positive heavy ion on average to have kinetic energy far in excess of that of the
average electron. It would be an interesting, though quite complicated mathematical task to
evaluate statistically the mean energy apportionment between ions and electrons, one which
I trust some enthusiastic mathematician might undertake. For my part it suffices to point to
the experimental evidence that supports what I am saying.

The Supporting Experimental Evidence

In my 1969 paper I drew attention to the fact that it had long been recognized that energy
was being acquired anomalously by positive ions subjected to acceleration in a cold cathode
gas discharge. The cathode reaction forces measured were high and inexplicable. I referred
to a paper by E. Kobel in Physical Review, 36, 1636 (1930). Clearly the effect of electrons
flowing in the return path outside the tube and acting on ion flow within the tube accounted
for that phenomenon, based on the law of electrodynamics as revised to replace the +(v.r)v'
term in Maxwell's equation by that -(m'/m)(v.r)v' term. I note that Maxwell used Cartesian
formulation, whereas I am using the vector notation that Sir Edmund Whittaker used in
discussing this subject in his 1951 book History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity. In
saying that the action of electron currents exerts anomalous electrodynamic forces that
accelerate heavy ions to higher than expected speeds, I am challenging orthodox theory
which sees no basis for electrodynamic forces existing along the line of the ion current flow
path, but the experimental evidence supports what I say. I refer to the subject of explosive arc
discharges in liquids and wire rupture in experiments reported by P. Graneau and P. N.
Graneau in Physics Letters, 97A, 253 (1983) and Applied Physics Letters, 46, 468 (1985).
These were discussed in the context of the revised law of electrodynamics in my paper in
Physics Letters, 111A, 22 (1985) but see also my paper in IEEE Transactions on Plasma
Science, PS-14, 282 (1986).

I also refer to my earlier paper on the subject of anomalous acceleration forces exerted by
electrons on ions in IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, PS-5, 159 (1977).
This latter paper was published just one year before the two fusion research papers that I
next mention, whereas my original 1969 paper antedates these by nine years. I refer to the
anomalous gain of energy by heavy ions found in plasma experiments and reported without
mention of the theory that I had shown to be relevant.

J. Reece Roth, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, PS-6, No. 2, June 1978, studied the
effect of radial electric fields in stabilizing a plasma discharge, but found that something was
causing the heavy ions in the plasma to have a much higher temperature than the free
electrons. The paper is entitled: 'Effects of Applied DC Radial Electric Fields on Particle
Transport in a Bumpy Torus Plasma'. Note that notion of 'temperature' as a sufficient
measure of energy. What was meant was that the heavy ions have acquired a much greater
energy than the electrons, whereas, seen as a kind of gas, they were supposed to have the
same mean energy and so the same temperature. This was a report arising from research
aimed at nuclear fusion and here was energy gain by the heavy ions that are supposedly
going to fuse and so deliver energy once containment and higher temperatures are reached.
That observed energy gain surely warranted full investigation.

In that same year I saw a paper by J. D. Sethian, D. A. Hammer and C. B. Wharton in

Physical Review Letters, 40, 451 (1978) and quote the following words from that paper
saying that they have found: "Experimental evidence for an anomalous electron-ion energy
transfer in a relativistic-electron-beam-heated plasma that is 1,000 times faster than can be
predicted by classical processes."
At the end of their paper they suggest 'without particular justification' that the anomalous
factor might be the hydrogen ion to electron mass ratio.

Here is another example of anomalous energy acquisition by heavy ions in a plasma, the
energy per ion being quite enormous compared with the energy of electrons in that plasma,
even though standard theory assumes they should have equal mean values.

Such research is aimed at replicating in a fusion reactor a process believed to be occurring

in the sun and, for some reason, ignoring what my earlier papers have offered as
explanation, those involved have not seen the common link, the fact that the sun's corona
contains heavy ions that have energies far in excess (by a factor of the order of 160 greater)
of that of the electrons that are seen as having the sun's temperature of 6000? . Surely there
is a natural physical process occurring by which apportionment of energy in a heavy ion-
electron plasma favours the heavy ions in a very substantial way.

Assuming that I am right in declaring that an out-of-balance linear force action is asserted by
the electromagnetic reference frame intrinsic to the medium I call the aether but which
otherwise can be referred to as the quantum underworld, that medium may well be supplying
that excess energy. Otherwise, it surely is interfering with the interaction between electrons
and heavy ions in a way which promotes energy transfer from electrons to those ions.

Now I have stated that my writings on this matter, and particularly my 1969 paper in the
Journal of the Franklin Institute, have not been heeded. I must correct that statement. There
is just one instance, a quite important instance, where a researcher in Canada, Dr. Paulo
Correa, somehow discovered that paper and saw its relevance to what he had discovered
experimentally in his plasma discharge research. He and his wife, Alexandra Correa, in their
laboratory research had discovered an anomalous inflow of energy that justified seeking
patent protection for their project. My paper was a supporting reference mentioned by the
Corrrea's in the patent description of their apparatus. The relevant U.S. patents are
numbered 5,416,391 (issued May 16, 1995), 5,449,989 (issued September 12, 1995) and
5,502,354 (issued March 26, 1996).

Indeed, owing to the significance of that research, I did myself in 1996 write and publish a 35
page Report entitled Power from Space: The Correa Invention, which is now of record in the
Report section of my website <>.

As a conclusion I submit that there is something wrong with a highly academic scientific
community funded to a large extent by governments concerned with our future energy
resource problems, when research discoveries of this kind can be ignored. It seems that
there can only be advances which conform strictly with scientific doctrines that are of
textbook record without heeding discoveries which happen to emerge from free-lance
research that trespasses outside textbook territory.

Electrodynamics was founded upon experiments confined to the interaction involving an

electron currents carried around a closed wire circuit and experiment shows that textbook
doctrine cannot cope with strange energy phenomena seen in plasma research where heavy
ions are involved.

Is there an aether medium permeating all space or not? Textbook knowledge assures
students that the aether has been eradicated, thanks to the doctrines proposed by Albert
Einstein. So, if the aether is feeding energy into those plasma discharges studied by the
Correas, that cannot be accepted and it is deemed appropriate to look elsewhere for our
future energy resources. Where to look? Our fusion reactor research, of course, a seemingly
never-ending quest, that even reveals its own anomalies. Energy seems to be creeping into
the heavy ions from some mysterious source, but that has yet to warrant special study in its
own right without us having to wait for the breakthrough that might come when a
100,000,000? temperature can be sustained for a long enough period without triggering our

I say we cannot be sure the sun is powered by nuclear fusion. Indeed I am sure it is not.
However, we can be sure that energy is finding its way into heavy ions in a plasma contrary
to accepted scientific principles and those in authority having concern for our energy future
should heed the message here

H. Aspden
30 October 2005