Abstract
Abstract We have good reason to believe that much if not most of the matter in the universe is in the plasma state. This state can be described by comparing it with that of an ordinary gas, which is familiar to all of us, where large numbers of molecules move in all directions with different velocities along criss-cross paths, each sudden change of direction of movement being caused by a collision between two or more particles. But whereas in a gas all particles are electrically neutral, in a plasma charged fragments of formerly neutral molecules, positive and sometimes negative ions and electrons, take part in the random motion together with their neutral companions as well as with light quanta (von Engel 1955). In the gas of many stars, the sun, and certain apparatus in our terrestrial laboratories, charged particles predominate over neutral particles; these conditions approach a state called the fully ionized plasma (Spitzer 1956).
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