Talk:Alfvén's theorem

The problem is that Alfven himself later objected to this idea because it was not a realistic solution to match observations. He naively thought such ideals would die on their own - but sadly he was mistaken.

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2%3A514247/FULLTEXT01.pdf

See page 15 onward.

This page is in serious need of updating. Sjw40364 (talk) 23:16, 17 December 2015 (UTC)


 * By the way, at a conference where Alfven was berating the audience about not using his theorem - Jim Dungey (who was a great fan of Alfven and who understood perfectly the value and significance of frozen-in and Alfven waves) reputedly called out "so when are you giving back your Nobel prize?". That is one reason why I think that it may well have been personal. MessageInABottle 16:33, 3 January 2023 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MichaelLockwood (talk • contribs)


 * Actually this is not the case at all. I met Alfven in later life and had a discussion with him, although (rather blatantly) began to ignored me and talk to others as soon as I invoked magnetic reconnection. Alfven was ideologically opposed the concept of reconnection - he dismissed it as a mere cartoon and would not allow his students to even mention the word, let alone use the concept. It was this that led him to abandon his own frozen-in theorem because he realised that if frozen-in applied universally, turbulent and vortical plasma motions would twist all magnetic fields up into ever tightening knots and tangles. Magnetic reconnection is the process that stops that happening, but rather than admit that, he disowned his own theorem! He is not the first truly great scientist to damage his reputation in later life, by any means (Edmund Halley and Linus Pauling are even more obvious examples).  As the observational evidence for reconnection grew ever more indisputable (as it has), he became more and more isolated from the development of space physics. Now we employ Alfven's frozen-in theorem and Dungey's reconnection in all areas of cosmic plasma physics from the Sun to galaxies. There are other breakdowns of frozen-in but it was reconnection that Alfven took a violent and ideological dislike to. I have never got to the bottom of why, but I suspect it was personal. He certainly did not drop frozen-in because it didn't fit observations (after all it has major successes, such as Eugene Parker's use of it to explain the Parker spiral in the heliosphere) - it was because it made reconnection essential. MessageInABottle 16:24, 3 January 2023 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MichaelLockwood (talk • contribs)

Alfvén's frozen-in theorem is very famous in plasma physics and astrophysics. But in his later years, Alfvén opposed the use of his own theorem. After years of deliberation, we finally Find out the error of this theorem. In short, the root of the error is the use of Ohm's law when Lenz's law should be used.

We have published two SCI papers and solved this problem with three kinds of experiments and theoretical analysis.

See a brief introduction： Why did Alfvén oppose the use of his own frozen-in flux theorem?