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Eric Lerner

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Eric Lerner
Born
Eric J. Lerner

(1947-05-31) May 31, 1947 (age 78)[1]
Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma materColumbia University
WebsiteLPPFusion.com

Eric J. Lerner (born May 31, 1947) is an American popular science writer and independent plasma researcher.[2] He wrote the 1991 book The Big Bang Never Happened, which advocates Hannes Alfvén's plasma cosmology instead of the Big Bang theory. He is founder, president, and chief scientist of LPP Fusion.[3]

Lerner received a BA in physics from Columbia University.[4]

LPP Fusion

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In 1984, he began studying plasma phenomena and laboratory fusion devices, performing experimental work on a machine called a dense plasma focus (DPF). NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has funded mainstream as well as alternative approaches to fusion, and between 1994 and 2001 NASA provided a grant to Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, the company of which Lerner was the only employee, to explore whether Lerner's alternative approach to fusion might be useful to propel spacecraft; a 2007 New York Times article noted that Lerner had not received funding from the United States Department of Energy.[5][6] He believes that a dense plasma focus can also be used to produce useful aneutronic fusion energy.[7][8] Lerner explained his "Focus Fusion" approach in a 2007 Google Tech Talk.[9]

On November 14, 2008, Lerner received funding for continued research, to test the scientific feasibility of Focus Fusion.[10] On January 28, 2011, LPP published preliminary results.[11] In March 2012, the company published a paper saying that it had achieved temperatures of 1.8 billion degrees, beating the old record of 1.1 billion that had survived since 1978.[12] In 2012 the company announced a collaboration with a lab at the Islamic Azad University Central Tehran Branch in Iran.[13] In 2017, Lerner et al. published evidence of confined ion energies in excess of 200 keV, with the best “shot” having a mean ion energy of 240 keV ± 20 keV which was reported as a record for confined fusion plasmas.[14]

The Big Bang Never Happened

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In his book The Big Bang Never Happened: A Startling Refutation of the Dominant Theory of the Origin of the Universe (Knopf Doubleday, 1992), Lerner rejects mainstream Big Bang cosmology, and instead advances a non-standard plasma cosmology originally proposed in the 1960s by Hannes Alfvén.[15]

Criticism

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Lerner's ideas have been rejected by mainstream physicists and cosmologists. In these critiques, critics have explained that, contrary to Lerner's assertions, the size of superclusters is a feature limited by subsequent observations to the end of greatness and is consistent with having arisen from a power spectrum of density fluctuations growing from the quantum fluctuations predicted in inflationary models.[16][17][18] Anisotropies were discovered in subsequent analysis of both the COBE and BOOMERanG experiments and were more fully characterized by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe[16][17] and the Planck space observatory.

Physical cosmologists who have commented on the book have generally dismissed it.[16][18][19][20][21][22] In particular, American astrophysicist and cosmologist Edward L. Wright criticized Lerner for making errors of fact and interpretation, arguing that:[17]

Activism

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While at Columbia, Lerner participated in the 1965 Selma March[23] and helped organize the 1968 Columbia Student Strike.[24][25]

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 U.S. Labor Party, an organization led by Lyndon LaRouche, to violate election law by channeling profits of an engineering firm to the organization.[26][27]

Lerner sought civil rights protection for immigrants as a member and spokesman for the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee.[28][29] He participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011.[30]

References

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  1. ^ Lerner, Eric (1992). "Force-Free Magnetic Filaments and the Cosmic Background Radiation" (PDF). IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 20 (6): 935. Bibcode:1992ITPS...20..935L. doi:10.1109/27.199554. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 5, 2006. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
  2. ^ John Wilford, "Novel Theory Challenges The Big Bang", The New York Times, February 28, 1989
  3. ^ Eric Lerner's biography page at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc.
  4. ^ Columbia Alumni Directory, 1988 edition, p.211
  5. ^ Kenneth Chang, "Practical Fusion, or Just a Bubble?", The New York Times, February 27, 2007
  6. ^ JPL Contract 959962 Archived July 19, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, pg 8, and JPL Contract 960283
  7. ^ Patrick Huyghe, "3 Ideas That Are Pushing the Edge of Science", Discover Magazine, June 2008
  8. ^ A Novel Form of Fusion Power, The Economist, October 22, 2009
  9. ^ Lerner, Eric (October 3, 2007). "Focus Fusion: The Fastest Route to Cheap, Clean Energy" (video). Google TechTalks. Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  10. ^ "LPP Receives Major Investments, Initiates Experimental Project". Lawrenceville Plasma Physics, Inc. November 22, 2008. Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  11. ^ Lerner, Eric J.; Krupakar Murali, S.; Haboub, A. (January 28, 2011). "Theory and Experimental Program for p-B11 Fusion with the Dense Plasma Focus". Journal of Fusion Energy. 30 (5): 367–376. Bibcode:2011JFuE...30..367L. doi:10.1007/s10894-011-9385-4. S2CID 122230379.
  12. ^ Lerner, Eric J.; S. Krupakar Murali; Derek Shannon; Aaron M. Blake; Fred Van Roessel (March 23, 2012). "Fusion reactions from >150 keV ions in a dense plasma focus plasmoid". Physics of Plasmas. 19 (3): 032704. Bibcode:2012PhPl...19c2704L. doi:10.1063/1.3694746. S2CID 120207711.
  13. ^ Knapp, Alex (June 4, 2012). "U.S. Company Teams With Iranian University To Develop Fusion Power". Forbes.
  14. ^ Lerner, Eric J.; Hassan, Syed M.; Karamitsos, Ivana; Von Roessel, Fred (October 1, 2017). "Confined ion energy >200 keV and increased fusion yield in a DPF with monolithic tungsten electrodes and pre-ionization". Physics of Plasmas. 24 (10). Bibcode:2017PhPl...24j2708L. doi:10.1063/1.4989859. ISSN 1070-664X.
  15. ^ Chown, Marcus (July 2, 2005). "Did the big bang really happen?". New Scientist.
  16. ^ a b c Stenger, Victor J. (Summer 1992). "Is the Big Bang a Bust?". Skeptical Inquirer. 16 (412). Archived from the original on September 25, 2006.
  17. ^ a b c Wright, Edward L. "Errors in "The Big Bang Never Happened"
  18. ^ a b "Big Bang Theory Makes Sense of Cosmic Facts; No Contradiction", The New York Times, June 18, 1991
  19. ^ "Did the Big Bang Happen?", The New York Times, September 1, 1991
  20. ^ Feuerbacher & Scranton. "Evidence for the Big Bang".
  21. ^ Macandrew, Alec. "The Big Bang is not a Myth".
  22. ^ A critique of the tactics of Eric Lerner mentioning him explicitly by name appears on Sean Carroll's blog, Preposterous Universe
  23. ^ Manoocheri, Kasra (February 2007). "Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement — Eric Lerner". crmvet.org.
  24. ^ "A Memorandum from the Strike Education Committee" Archived September 7, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Columbia University archives, May 4, 1968. Lists Eric Lerner as one of the committee members.
  25. ^ Eric Lerner | Columbia University 1968
  26. ^ King, Dennis (1989). "Chapter 32". Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-23880-9.
  27. ^ Dennis King; Patricia Lynch (May 27, 1986). "The Empire of Lyndon LaRouche". The Wall Street Journal (Eastern ed.). p. 1.
  28. ^ Hsu, Spencer S. (January 17, 2007). "Immigrants Mistreated, Report Says". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 31, 2024.
  29. ^ Eman Varoqua, "Not Everyone Is A Terrorist", The Record (Bergen County, NJ), December 7, 2004
  30. ^ Harkinson, Josh. "Occupy Protesters' One Demand: A New New Deal—Well, Maybe", Mother Jones, October 18, 2011.
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