ABSTRACT

This state of matter was –rst identi–ed by William Crookes in a Crookes tube and was described as “radiant matter” in 1879 [1]. The nature of the radiant cathode ray matter was subsequently identi–ed by J. J. Thompson in 1897 [2], but the term to describe plasma was coined by Irving Langmuir in 1928 [3]. However, it is not clear why Langmuir picked plasma, though loose connection to “blood plasma” was mentioned [4].