Abstract
On being asked how should one describe one’s field of activity, the Nobel Laureate Subramanyan Chandrasekhar replied: The description should answer the following questions (1) What is the nature of the system? (ii)towards what purpose is its study and (iii) what are the techniques for its investigation? Taking inspiration from the ‘man who knew the best’, we shall in this chapter, begin with the nature of a plasma and continue to explore it in the rest of the book, pausing in Chapter 2 to develop the techniques. The purpose unfolds itself as we learn more and more about the nature of a plasma. However, if you like one-liners, we can say: the nature of a plasma is Hyperactive, the purpose is to Comprehend the Universe and the techniques employed are Many-Body.
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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Krishan, V. (1999). Plasma — The Universal State of Matter. In: Astrophysical Plasmas and Fluids. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 235. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4720-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4720-0_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-5490-1
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