Eric Lerner

Eric Lerner
Lerner at a Google TechTalks presentation in 2007
Born	Eric J. Lerner (1947-05-31) May 31, 1947[1] Brookline, Massachusetts
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States of America
Website	http://www.bigbangneverhappened.org/p7.htm

Eric J. Lerner (born 1947) is an American scientist, popular science author, independent plasma researcher,^[2] and president of Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc.^[3] He wrote the 1991 book The Big Bang Never Happened, which advocates Hannes Alfvén's Plasma Cosmology instead of the Big Bang theory.

Professional work

Lerner received a BA in physics from Columbia University^[4] and started as a graduate student in physics at the University of Maryland, but left after a year due to his dissatisfaction with the mathematical rather than experimental approach there.^[5][6] He then pursued a career in popular science writing.

In 1984, he began studying plasma phenomena and laboratory fusion devices, performing experimental work on a machine called a dense plasma focus (DPF). Lerner received funding from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1994 and 2001 to explore whether the dense plasma focus could be an effective ion thruster to propel spacecraft.^[7][8] He believes that a dense plasma focus can also be used to produce useful aneutronic fusion energy.^[9][10] Lerner explained his "Focus Fusion" approach in a 2007 Google Tech Talk.^[11] On November 14, 2008, Lerner received funding for continued research, to test the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion.^[12] On October 15, 2009, the DPF device "Focus Fusion-1" achieved its first pinch.^[13] On January 28, 2011, LPP published initial results including experimental shots with considerably higher fusion yields than the historical DPF trend.^[14] In March, 2012, the company announced that it had achieved temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees, beating the old record of 1.1 billion that had survived since 1978.^[15][16] One independent expert stated that they were not close to a commercial fusion reactor with this device.^[17]

Lerner is also an active general science writer, estimating that he has had about 600 articles published.^[3] He has received journalism awards between 1984 and 1993 from the Aviation Space Writers Association. In 2006 he was a Visiting Scientist at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.^[18]

The Big Bang Never Happened

Lerner's 1991 book, The Big Bang Never Happened

The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe (1991) is Lerner's controversial book which rejects mainstream Big Bang cosmology, and instead advances a non-standard plasma cosmology originally proposed by Hannes Alfvén in the 1960s. The book appeared at a time when results from the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite were of some concern to astrophysicists who expected to see cosmic microwave background anisotropies but instead measured a blackbody spectrum with little variation across the sky. Lerner referred to this as evidence that the Big Bang was a failed paradigm. He also denigrated the observational evidence for dark matter and recounted a well known cosmological feature that superclusters are larger than the largest structures that could have formed through gravitational collapse in the age of the universe.^[5]

As an alternative to the Big Bang, Lerner adopted Alfvén's model of plasma cosmology that relied on plasma physics to explain most, if not all, cosmological observations by appealing to electromagnetic forces.^[5] Adopting an eternal universe,^[19] Lerner's explanation of cosmological evolution relied on a model of thermodynamics based on the work of the Nobel Chemistry prize winner Ilya Prigogine under which order emerges from chaos.^[5][20] This is in apparent defiance of the second law of thermodynamics though only if the universe is finite, as asserted by modern cosmology. Lerner asserts that away from equilibrium order can spontaneously form by taking advantage of energy flows, as argued more recently by Eric Chaisson, an American astrophysicist.^[21]

Lerner's criticisms of the Big Bang theory have been rejected by some physicists and cosmologists who have reviewed his book. The size of superclusters is a feature that has been limited by subsequent observations to the end of greatness and explained in the astronomical journals as arising from a power spectrum of density fluctuations growing from the quantum fluctuations predicted in inflationary models.^[22][23][24] Anisotropies were discovered in subsequent analysis of the both COBE and BOOMERanG experiments and were more fully characterized by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe^[22][23] and Planck.

Physical cosmologists who have commented on the book have generally dismissed it.^{[22][24][25][26][27][28]} In particular, Edward L. Wright, the American astrophysicist and cosmologist, was critical of Lerner for making errors of fact and interpretation and criticized specifics of Lerner's alternative cosmology,^[23] claiming that:

• Lerner's alternative model for Hubble's Law is dynamically unstable
• the number density of distant radio sources falsifies Lerner's explanation for the cosmic microwave background
• Lerner's explanation that the helium abundance is due to stellar nucleosynthesis fails because of the small observed abundance of heavier elements

Lerner has disputed Wright's critique.^[29]

Activism

While at Columbia, Lerner participated in the 1965 Selma March^[30] and helped organize the 1968 Columbia Student Strike.^[31][32]

In the 1970s, Lerner became involved in the National Caucus of Labor Committees, an offshoot of the Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society. Lerner left the National Caucus in 1978, later stating in a lawsuit that he had resisted pressure from the US Labor Party, an organization led by Lyndon LaRouche, to violate election law by channeling profits of an engineering firm to the organization.^[33][34]

More recently, Lerner sought civil rights protection for immigrants as a member and spokesman for the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee.^[35][36] He participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011,^[37] with socialist movement.^[38]

References

External links

• Eric J. Lerner Home Page
• Focus Fusion Society
• Big Bang Never Happened Home Page and Summary
• Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc.
• Cem anos após Engels, onde está o enfoque histórico nas ciências? (Portuguese)