T. Gold originally formulated many concepts that are now common lore in solar physics (and in other fields). In this classic but little-cited paper, he pointed out the contradiction between the repeated occurrence of what we now call CMEs, and the then-known rough invariability of the interplanetary magnetic field. Why would it not intensify continually as more and more CMEs happened? This would have to be the result of some process between the corona and the solar wind, essentially, and we now discuss this as a form of magnetic reconnection ("interchange reconnection"; see the Crooker cartoon) for this possibly unnecessary neologism.
24 September 2007