Swedish physicist Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén won a Nobel Prize of 1970 for his theories on plasma physics.

This electrical engineer and winner for his work on magnetohydrodynamics. He described the now known class of magnetohydrodynamics waves. People originally trained him as an electrical power engineer, and he later moved to research and teaching in the fields. Alfvén made many contributions, including theories, describing the behavior of aurorae, the van Allen belts of radiation, the effect of storms on the field of Earth, the terrestrial magnetosphere, and the dynamics in the Milky Way.

Alfvén received his Philosophiae Doctor from the University of Uppsala in 1934. His thesis was titled "Investigations of the Ultra-short Electromagnetic Waves."

In 1934, Alfvén taught at the University of Uppsala and the later renamed Manne Siegbahn institute in Stockholm. In 1940, he served as professor of electromagnetic theory and measurements at the royal institute of technology in Stockholm. In 1945, he acquired the non-appointive position of chair of electronics. From 1954 to 1955, Alfvén served as a James William Fulbright scholar at the University of Maryland in College Park. People changed his title to chair in 1963. He left, spent time in the Soviet Union, and afterward in 1967 moved to the United States. Alfvén worked in the departments of electrical engineering at the University of California in San Diego and the University of Southern California.

In 1991, Alfvén retired as professor of electrical engineering at the University of California in San Diego and at the royal institute of technology in Stockholm.

Alfvén spent his later adult life, alternating between California and Sweden.

With a good sense of humor, Alfvén participated in a variety of social issues and worldwide disarmament movements. With a longstanding distrust of computers. Alfvén studied the history of science, Oriental philosophy, and religion. Alfven viewed as a critical irreligious atheist. He spoke English, German, French, and Russian, and some Spanish and Chinese. He expressed great concern about the difficulties of permanent high-level radioactive waste management. Problems in cosmology and all aspects of aurorae also interested Alfvén, who used Das Phänomen des Polarlichts , well-known book of Wilfried Schröder. People published Letters of Alfvén, Treder, and Schröder on the occasion of seventieth birthday of Hans Jürgen Treder. Wilfried Schröder published a long paper on changes in auroral theories in honor of eightieth birthday of Hannes Alfvén in the German scientific journal Gerlands Beiträge zur Geophysik in 1988. Schröder discussed the relationships with Hans-Jürgen Treder and Hannes Alfvén in detail in his publications.

Kerstin Alfvén, a wife, married Hannes Alfvén for 67 years. They reared one boy and four girls. His son served as a physician, while one daughter wrote, and another daughter served as a lawyer. The composer Hugo Alfvén was uncle of Hannes Alfvén.