[en] The first part is a lightning fast overview of the application of ideas of modern effective quantum field theory (which originated in elementary particle theory) to plasma physics. An exhaustive account is presented in a long report with L. G. Yaffe which contains all the details set out in a self-contained and pedagogical fashion. The second part shows how the low temperature but dilute limit of the partition function at two-loop order describes a gas of electrons, protons, and hydrogen atoms in their ground state. Hydrogen atoms emerge automatically from the general framework which does not begin with any explicit consideration of atoms. (orig.)