A New Science of Heaven

This book rewrites the setting of the life debate: instead of a dead vacuum dotted with planets, Temple paints an electric universe where self-organising plasma structures mimic life. It matters for anyone drawn to big-canvas science — cosmology, the origin of life, consciousness — who wants a challenge to standard assumptions, even if some claims outrun the evidence.

1. 1Chapter 2

   Alfvén's vindicated prediction of plasma in space

   Temple recounts Hannes Alfvén's famous 1937 prediction that the space between the stars is not empty but filled with plasma — electrically charged gas. The prediction was initially ridiculed, but decades later satellite measurements confirmed exactly what he said would be there: plasma, everywhere, threading the interstellar dark. In 1970, Alfvén won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He spent his career building plasma cosmology and magnetohydrodynamics, and refusing to stop criticising 'big bang' cosmology. His argument never changed: electricity, not just gravity, shapes the universe. Temple describes Alfvén as a foundational figure for the book's thesis.

   The idea

   Alfvén's story shows how a field can be blind to its own medium. Space looked empty, so physicists modelled it as empty; the plasma filling it was invisible to telescopes tuned for other signals. His vindication — prediction first, satellite confirmation decades later — is a warning about consensus. Temple leans on that authority to argue electric currents deserve equal billing with gravity in cosmic structure.

   Try this: Read one thing this week about a scientific prediction that was ridiculed, then confirmed — and note what the doubters said before the data arrived.

2. 2Chapter 2

   Double layers: electric structures that accelerate particles

   Temple explains the 'double layer' phenomenon, discovered by Irving Langmuir in 1929: a structure in plasma that can accelerate particles and create electric fields in space. Alfvén predicted the existence of such double layers in plasmas — a prediction initially ridiculed but later confirmed by satellite data. These structures give plasma a way to concentrate electric fields and fling particles through them.

   The idea

   Double layers matter because they give plasma a way to do work: concentrate electric fields in narrow sheets and accelerate particles through them. That mechanism underpins the plasma universe picture — energy delivered not by diffuse gravity alone but by structured, localised fields. The pattern repeats through the book: a lab discovery, a cosmic prediction, ridicule, then satellite confirmation.

   Try this: When you hear 'space is a vacuum', remind yourself that charged particles and fields fill it — and ask what that changes about any cosmic story you're told.

3. 3Chapter 3

   Plasma filaments grow double helices — like DNA

   At Los Alamos National Laboratory, Anthony Peratt ran massive computer simulations of plasma filaments. He found the filaments spontaneously form double helix structures resembling DNA. Peratt's simulations also produced figures that looked like 'sky gods' with radiating lines, and plasma in the lab forms structures identical to petroglyphs carved on rocks around the world. Temple suggests ancient peoples witnessed massive plasma discharges in the sky — such as coronal mass ejections — and may have recorded them as these figures.

   The idea

   Two claims ride together here, and they hit differently. The helix result suggests plasma self-organises into life's favourite shape without any biology involved. The petroglyph claim goes further: that our ancestors watched plasma storms and carved what they saw. The first is a simulation result; the second is an interpretation of archaeology — and the gap between them is where sceptics will push.

   Try this: Search images of petroglyphs and plasma discharge formations side by side, and judge for yourself how strong the resemblance really is.

4. 4Chapter 3

   Birkeland currents: electric currents spanning the galaxies

   Birkeland currents are named after Norwegian physicist Kristian Birkeland. Temple describes them as vast, galaxy-spanning currents of charged particles — filamentary electric currents flowing along magnetic field lines through space plasma.

   The idea

   If space is threaded with currents, the universe is less like a cloud of dust and more like a circuit board. Filamentary structure explains why plasma organises into cells, sheets and helices rather than spreading evenly. It also sets up the book's later move: structures that carry energy and information over vast distances look increasingly like candidates for something more than chemistry.

   Try this: Look up images of filamentary structure in nebulae and compare them with images of electrical filaments in lab plasmas.

5. 5Chapter 1

   In 1890s Oslo, a magnetised globe recreated the aurora

   In the 1890s, Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland built the 'terrella': a magnetised sphere representing Earth inside a vacuum chamber, bombarded with electrons to simulate the aurora. Birkeland concluded the sun emits electrons that are guided by Earth's magnetic field to the polar regions, creating the aurora — the northern lights. His contemporaries dismissed the theory, but satellite data later vindicated him.

   The idea

   The terrella is a small machine with a big lesson: you can hold a piece of the cosmos in a vacuum chamber and interrogate it. Birkeland's dismissal shows how hard it was for his era to accept that invisible particles from the sun shape the sky. His posthumous vindication set the template for the whole book — plasma ideas ridiculed first, confirmed by instruments later.

   Try this: Next time aurora photos flood your feed, remember they trace electrons from the sun funnelled by Earth's magnetic field — a result predicted with a tabletop experiment in the 1890s.

6. 6Chapter 1/2

   Why it's called 'plasma': blood in a vacuum tube

   In the 1920s at General Electric, Irving Langmuir studied ionised gas in his vacuum tubes and observed its life-like, self-organising properties. He coined the term 'plasma' — borrowing the word from blood plasma, because of the way the ionised gas carried particles like blood carries corpuscles. Temple details Langmuir's work, noting the term comes from the Greek for 'mouldable substance'.

   The idea

   The name is a fossil of an observation. Langmuir didn't call it plasma for poetry; he chose the word because the gas acted like something alive, transporting particles as blood does. That life-like behaviour, noticed at the very birth of the field, is the thread Temple pulls through the entire book — from vacuum tubes to the possibility of plasma-based life.

   Try this: Notice how many scientific terms carry hidden metaphors — then look up the origin of one term you use daily and see what the first observer actually saw.

7. 7Chapter 7

   Plasma crystals that mate, metabolise and evolve

   In 2003, Dr. V. N. Tsytovich's team — with G. E. Morfill, V. J. Fortov and their colleagues — published results in the New Journal of Physics showing that inorganic plasma dust can form 'plasma crystals' with properties resembling living systems. In 2007, Dr. Tsytovich and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute demonstrated in computer simulations that plasma dust particles in weightless conditions can self-organise into helical structures that can replicate and evolve. The simulated structures could 'mate' by intertwining helices and transfer information, and 'metabolise' by absorbing energy from the surrounding plasma.

   The idea

   This is the book's boldest evidence: not biology drifting through space, but inorganic dust organising itself into structures that copy, feed and evolve. The behaviours are simulated, not observed in the wild — but the physics is published and peer-reviewed. If helical plasma dust can do the bare essentials of life without carbon, the definition of life may need rewriting.

   Try this: Read the abstract of the 2007 Tsytovich plasma-crystal paper and list which 'living' criteria it claims — replication, evolution, metabolism — and which it doesn't.

8. 8Chapter 9

   The holographic universe: Bohm, Pribram and the enfolded order

   Temple describes the work of physicists such as David Bohm, who proposed that the universe has an underlying order and interconnectedness — his concept of the 'implicate order'. Temple references the 'holographic principle' proposed by Bohm and psychiatrist and neurophysiologist Karl Pribram as a framework for understanding consciousness and the universe, discussing their theories of the 'holographic brain' and the 'implicate order', and suggesting a plasma-like, interconnected substrate for consciousness. The chapter quotes Bohm: 'The total, overall order is enfolded or implicated in each region of space and time.'

   The idea

   Temple uses Bohm and Pribram to bridge plasma and mind. If the universe's order is enfolded in every region — as Bohm says — then an interconnected, plasma-like substrate could host consciousness at scales far beyond neurons. The holographic idea dissolves the boundary between brain and cosmos: same principle, different medium. It's the philosophical capstone to the plasma-life argument.

   Try this: Hold a small hologram or diffraction-grating slide this week and notice how each fragment contains the whole image — then sit with Bohm's sentence about order enfolded in every region.

Anyone who loved popular cosmology but suspects the standard story leaves something out — and readers curious whether life is chemistry-only. Come for the electric universe; stay for the plasma crystals that mate.

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