Plasma

“ These depict the relationship between the two plasma source regions and the two geospace storage regions. By placing a properly instrumented spacecraft laboratory in each of the four key regions, scientists can simultaneously observe the entry of plasma into the system, the storage and release of energy within the system, and the transfer of plasma and energy between those key regions as they change with time. ”

“ Blood Plasma.—The plasma is a solution in water of a varied number of substances, and as a solvent it confers on the blood its power of acting as a carrier of food stuffs and waste products. One important food substance, oxygen, is, however, only partly carried in solution, being mainly combined with haemoglobin in the red corpuscles. ”

“ Designers of fusion reactors or advanced microwave radio transmitters are often challenged by problems in plasma physics. Plasmas must be accelerated to extreme energies. Energetic particles must be confined and transported. ”

“ Plas′mic, pertaining to plasma, protoplasmic.—ns. Plasmō′dium, composite masses of primitive protozoa, in which numerous units are fused, or in rare cases simply combined in close contact; Plas′mogen, true protoplasm; Plasmog′ony, the generation of an organism from plasma ”

“ The food stuffs carried by the plasma are proteins, carbohydrates, salts and water. The main waste products dissolved in it are ammonium carbonate, urea, urates, xanthin bases, creatin and small amounts of other nitrogenous bodies, carbonic acid as carbonates, other carbon compounds such as cholesterin, lecithin and a number of other substances. Thus, if we take mammalian blood as a type, the plasma would have the following approximate composition:—
Proteins.—The proteins of the blood plasma belong to the two classes of the albumins and the globulins. ”

“ Only serum and plasma which are absolutely free from hæmoglobin must be used for these experiments. To a measured quantity of serum or plasma a certain quantity, in cubic centimetres, of an albumen, peptone, or polypeptide solution, having a known composition in regard to substrates, is added; a polariscope tube is filled with the mixture, and the rotation is quickly ascertained by means of a good polariscope. The tube is then placed in an incubator, and from time to time the angle of rotation is again noted. ”

“ Suppose I say that after they've run everything down to that plasma they're so fond of beginning and ending with, there is still something behind it all their theories can't explain away? Protoplasm doesn't explain Life any more than the battery explains electricity. ”

“ The elements of our tissues have their nutrition kept up by a constant movement of supply and withdrawal, new molecules replace the old ones, and acts of assimilation and disassimilation find by turns in the plasma their point of origin and completion. The blood-globule is nourished just as the constituent parts of the glands, the muscles, the nerves, and the brain are, and the only difference to be noted in this respect is that the process takes place within the very plasma itself, while the other elements are parted from it by the thin membrane of the capillary vessels. ”

“ The dynamic range extends from a maximum field of 20 gauss down to 2 × 10−8 gauss—a factor of one billion. The fields can be measured as frequently as 17 times per second. The total mass, exclusive of the 13-meter boom, is 5.6 kilograms.
Herbert S. Bridge, plasma particle Principal Investigator
Plasma Particles
Plasma is the term given to a “gas” of charged particles; the electrons and protons are separate, yet there are equal numbers of each, producing a zero net charge. ”

“ In every case where we have with great difficulty succeeded in examining the plasm as far as possible and separating it from the plasma-products, it has the appearance of a colorless, viscous substance, the chief physical property of which is its peculiar thickness and consistency. The physicist distinguishes three conditions of inorganic matter—solid, fluid, and gaseous. Active living protoplasm cannot strictly be described as either fluid or solid in the physical sense. ”

“ The study of the permeability to various substances of what we may perhaps consider as the most simply organized cells in the whole body, the colored corpuscles of the blood, promises to throw a flood of light on absorption in general. It has been lately shown that they are practically non-conductors of electricity in comparison with the liquid portion of the blood, or plasma, in which they float. This is due to the fact that the salts of the plasma, whose ions carry the electricity, penetrate the corpuscles with difficulty, sodium chloride, for example, scarcely passing into them at all. ”

“ The various reactions shown by these little bodies in presence of chemical agents lead to the belief that they are found in the plasma in all stages of their development; their dimensions are not the same at the different ages of our organization. ”

“ Plasma interactions are important throughout the solar system and the universe. Geospace uniquely provides an accessible example of a plasma environment in which significant processes can be studied directly. ”

“ These processes again, like some of those already referred to, appear to be a function of the changing permeability of the plasma-membrane. When we take a tissue consisting of a parallel bundle of cells, like a frog's sartorius muscle, cut it across, place one electrode in contact with the normal uninjured surface of the muscle, and the other with its cut surface, and connect the two with a galvanometer, we find that an electrical current passes—the so-called demarcation-current. The exposed interior (or cut surface) of the cells always shows a lower potential than the exterior ”

“ The fireball plasma will be full of inhomogeneities moving at several per cent of light speed. Their electromagnetic output, hitting our magnetic core units, will turn them from super to ordinary conduction. ”

“ Plasmas are ionized gaseous mixtures. Their study lies at the heart of a constant search by atomic scientists for a self-sustained, controlled fusion reaction that can be used to provide useful thermonuclear power. This kind of reaction provides the almost unlimited energy in the sun and other stars. It is more efficient and releases less radioactivity than the other principal nuclear 39 process, fission, which is used in atomic-electric power plants. [15]
Figure 23 Shadowgraph of deuterium discharge taken in laser light. Turbulence of the plasma is clearly seen. ”

“ With the help of the ferments the cell is continuously remodelling in a suitable manner the food, which the blood brings to it still in harmony with the plasma, either by way of completing a further decomposition, or of setting up a synthesis. The ferments are the tools of the cells, by means of which fuel is brought into a suitable form, the structure of the cell is completed, and various substances are prepared, which, as secretions, have a more or less definite part to play throughout the organism. If the organism liberates defensive ferments, then its cells effect nothing actually new. ”

“ I find the radiation, in vacuo, from ignited platina, is to that in air as three to one:—so much for Leslie's hypothesis.
A little electrical machine acts with a repulsion as two, in a vacuum equal to five inches of mercury; as thirty, in common air; as thirty, in oxygen; as twenty-nine or thirty, in hydrogen; and as forty-five, in carbonic acid. I showed this experiment, made with every precaution, to Mr. Cavendish, Dr. Herschell, Dr. Wollaston, and Warburton: so much for the theory, that electricity is dependent upon oxidation. I do not think our worthy friend Pepys will resist any longer. ”

“ If the corpuscles which neutralize the positive particles are not free but are in the molecules of the gas through which these particles are passing, we can understand why there is a lower as well as an upper limit to the velocity of the particles which give rise to the secondaries due to particles which have been neutralized while passing through the electric and magnetic fields. For on this view the particle before it can be neutralized has to detach a corpuscle from an atom or molecule. ”

“ If, however, we admit that water is not an electrolyte, we are free to suppose that equal volumes of oxygen and of hydrogen are chemically equivalent.
The dynamical theory of gases leads us to suppose that in perfect gases equal volumes always contain an equal number of molecules, and that the principal part of the specific heat, that, namely, which depends on the motion of agitation of the molecules among each other, is the same for equal numbers of molecules of all gases. ”

“ If we suppose the field is so strong that at some particular pressure the energy acquired by the corpuscle is well above the value required to ionize at each collision, then it is evident that increasing the number of collisions will increase the amount of ionization, and therefore α, and α cannot begin to diminish until the pressure has increased to such an extent that the mean free path of a corpuscle is so small that the energy acquired by the corpuscle from the electric field falls below the value when each collision results in ionization. ”

“ Thus in the most simple conditions for discharge we should have sufficient ionization to keep up the supply of positive ions, and an electric field strong enough to keep the velocity of the negative corpuscle equal to the value it has when it emerges from the negative glow. Thus the force must be such as to give a constant velocity to the corpuscle, and since the force required to move an ion with a given velocity is proportional to the pressure, this force will be proportional to the pressure of the gas. ”

“ The variation of the electric field required to produce discharge can be completely explained if we suppose that the ionization of the gas is produced by the impact with its molecules of corpuscles, and in certain cases of positive ions, which under the influence of the electric field have acquired considerable kinetic energy. We have direct evidence that rapidly moving corpuscles are able to ionize molecules against which they strike, for the cathode rays consist of such corpuscles, and these when they pass through a gas produce large amounts of ionization. ”

“ Thus we say that an atom of oxygen is bivalent, or a dyad, because it conveys twice as much electricity through the liquid in which it is present as an atom of hydrogen, which is termed univalent, or a monad. Here we see a direct connection between the conveyance of an electric charge and the atomic weight. The electric unit of quantity is in fact defined as that which can be conveyed by a certain weight of hydrogen, by 8 times that weight of oxygen, by 108 times that weight of [Pg 237] silver, and so on. ”

“ It may be discovered that hydrogen is composed of fifty different bodies, that oxygen is transformed into hydrogen, that the electric current is a ponderable force or a luminous emission. No matter what is going to be discovered, we shall never, in any case, prevent what we call to-day an electric current from transforming, under certain conditions of combined pressure and temperature, what we call water into two gases, each having different properties, gases which are emitted in volumetrical proportions of 2 to 1. ”

“ All admit that the force of elements forms a part of the anatomic structure, and there must be electricity. When oxygen is taken into a body it excites the elements in the same manner as the negative chlorine attacks the zinc in the battery. The electrical circuit of the body is the circulating blood, and when the oxygen and the nitrogen are taken in through the lungs the electro-negative ions go in one direction. ”

“ Two platinum electrodes are immersed in water slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid, and tubes are arranged above them so that the gases evolved can be collected separately. When the current is passing, bubbles of gas appear on the electrodes. When they are collected and examined, the gas which appears at the anode is found to be oxygen, and that which appears at the cathode to be hydrogen. The quantities evolved are in the proportion to form water. ”

“ The corpuscle falls into the positively charged atom and the energy gained by the fall is radiated away as light. On this view the intensity of the light should vary with the number of recombinations of positive ions and negative corpuscles. Let n be at any instant the number of neutral particles per unit volume moving velocity V, p the number of positive particles moving with the same velocity, N the number of corpuscles In the tract of these particles per unit volume. ”

“ Hydrogen and oxygen gases in separate receivers might remain tranquil and unchanged for ages, and it depends upon the choice of the experimenter, when he wishes to render their energy available, whether their intense chemical force shall take the form of heat or give forth an electric current. ”

“ The hydrogen ions get the electrons which they need, but they get something more. They get some of the oxygen away from the plate and so form molecules of water. You remember that water molecules are made of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Meanwhile, the lead atoms, which have lost their oxygen companions, combine with some of the sulphate ions which are in that neighborhood. During the mix-up electrons are carried away from the plate and that leaves it positive. ”