James Benford

James Nelson Benford is an American physicist, High-Power Microwave (HPM) scientist, book author, science-fiction writer, and entrepreneur,[1] best known for introducing novel technological concepts and conjectures related to the exploration of outer space, among these the design of laser-driven sailships,[2] the possible use of co-orbital objects (moon, asteroids) by alien probes to spy on earth,[3][4] and the appraisal of technical and safety issues associated with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).[5][6] He was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1941.[7]

James Benford
Born (1941-01-30) January 30, 1941
Mobile, Alabama, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Oklahoma
University of California, San Diego
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics

Education

Benford graduated with a BS in physics from the University of Oklahoma in 1963. He further obtained MS (1966), and Ph.D. (1969) degrees from the University of California at San Diego.[8][9] He received scholarships from the OU Club of Dallas[10] for undergraduate studies, and the Aerojet General Corporation for graduate studies.[11]

Career

While still a graduate student, Benford published his first research papers in the field of plasma physics.[12] From 1969 to 1996 he worked in the Physics International (PI), (San Leandro, CA), initially as a research physicist, then advancing to executive positions, and founding its HPMi division in 1989,[13][14] whose accomplishments included developing advanced HPM sources,[15] building a large HPM experimental facility,[16] beginning its HPM product line,[17] and implementing program ORION, an important HPM system built to a design specification which arose within the UK.[18] At PI Benford published research papers on particle beams, fusion, pulsed power and HPM, relativistic magnetron and virtual cathode oscillator (vircator) technology.[19][20][21][22][23][24]

In 1996 he founded Microwave Sciences, Inc., (MS, Lafayette, California), where he remains as its president. At MS, his research interests have dealt with HPM systems design, HPM effects testing, and power beaming for space propulsion.[25] Benford is a leader and consultant at Breakthrough Starshot, a research and engineering project aiming to send probes to the nearby stars within the long term.[26] He was a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Applied Physics,[27] in the subject of Intense Particle Beams.[28] He has taught HPM courses worldwide.[29] Videos covering Benford's work can be readily found on the internet.[30][31][32]

Membership

He is a member of the American Physical Society.[33] At IEEE he has been a member since 1970, and a Fellow since 1996.[1][34] He is also an EMP Fellow of the Summa Foundation, University of New Mexico since 1998.[35]

Editorial

With his twin brother Gregory Benford, he was a co-editor of Void, a science fiction fanzine published from 1955 to 1969.[36] He was Guest Editor of the Special Issue on High Power Microwave Generation, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Sciences (vol 20, 1992), and an article reviewer for a number of scientific journals including Physical Review Letters, IEEE Transactions in Plasma Sciences, Journal of Applied Physics, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society and Applied Physics Letters.[37]

Works

Research papers

Benford has published over one hundred research papers in peer-reviewed sources.[24] His most cited research papers[38] are:

  • Benford, J.; Sze, H.; Woo, W.; Smith, R. R.; Harteneck, B. (1989-02-20). "Phase Locking of Relativistic Magnetrons". Physical Review Letters. 62 (8): 969–971. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.969[39]
  • Benford, J.; Benford, G. (1997). "Survey of pulse shortening in high-power microwave sources". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 25 (2): 311–317. doi:10.1109/27.602505. ISSN 1939-9375.[40]
  • Haworth, M.D.; Baca, G.; Benford, J.; Englert, T.; Hackett, K.; Hendricks, K.J.; Henley, D.; LaCour, M.; Lemke, R.W.; Price, D.; Ralph, D. (1998). "Significant pulse-lengthening in a multigigawatt magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 26 (3): 312–319. doi:10.1109/27.700759. ISSN 1939-9375[41]
  • Benford, James (2008). "Space Applications of High-Power Microwaves". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 36 (3): 569–581. doi:10.1109/TPS.2008.923760. ISSN 1939-9375.[42]
  • Benford, James; Benford, Gregory; Benford, Dominic (2010). "Messaging with Cost-Optimized Interstellar Beacons". Astrobiology. 10 (5): 475–490. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0393. ISSN 1531-1074.[43]

Science fiction

His most recent science fiction writings are:

  • A Science Critique of Aurora, Stephen Baxter, James Benford, and Joseph Miller, The New York Review of Science Fiction, pg. 12 September 2015.[44]
  • “Power Beaming Leakage Radiation as a SETI Observable”, James Benford and Dominic Benford, ApJ, pg. 825, 101 (2016).[45]
  • “Seeing Alien Tech”, James Benford and Dominic Benford, Analog, Vol. CXXXVIII, pg. 40–44, May/June (2018).[46]

Books
  • Benford, James; Benford, Gregory (2013). Starship Century: Toward the Grandest Horizon. Lucky Bat Books. ISBN 978-1-939051-29-5. OCLC 857646236.[47][48]
  • Benford, James; Swegle, John A.; Schamiloglu, Edl (2019). High Power Microwaves (3rd ed.). CRC Press. doi:10.1201/9781420012064. ISBN 978-0-367-87100-0. OCLC 1129817799. Cited 1727 times by 2022.[38]

Patents and inventions

Benford has been awarded US invention patents for: Particle beam injection system(1974),[49] and Systems and methods for generating high power, wideband microwave radiation using variable capacitance voltage multiplication (2007).[50] He also invented a number of HPM devices including a Side-Extracted Vircator,[51] a Cavity Vircator.[52] and a High Power Vacuum Horn antenna.[53]

References
  1. "James Benford". ieeexplore.ieee.org. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  2. Ackerman, Elise. "Seven Sci-Fi Scenarios For Interstellar Space Travel That Could Happen In This Century". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-12-25.
  3. Curtis, Sophie (2019-10-01). "Aliens 'spying on us from asteroids that orbit the Sun in sync with Earth'". mirror. Retrieved 2021-12-25.
  4. "Astronomer probes idea of ET 'lurkers' | Space | EarthSky". earthsky.org. 2019-09-29. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
  5. Kehe, Jason. "Romantic or Reckless? The Plan to Message Aliens with Twitter". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
  6. Patton, Paul (2015-02-19). "Who Speaks for Earth? The Controversy over Interstellar Messaging". Universe Today. Retrieved 2021-12-30.
  7. "Summary Bibliography: James Benford". www.isfdb.org. Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  8. Benford, J. N. (1970). "Rotation in the Implosion Phase of a Theta Pinch" (Ph.D. dissertation). University of California at San Diego: 1. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  9. Benford, James (1972-03-01). "Rotation during the Implosion of a Theta Pinch". The Physics of Fluids. 15 (3): 435–445. Bibcode:1972PhFl...15..435B. doi:10.1063/1.1693926. ISSN 0031-9171.
  10. "Trap Door" (PDF). www.fanac.org.
  11. "UCSD Special Fellowships and Regents Fellowships Granted some UCSD students" (PDF). ucsd.edu.
  12. Benford, James; Lovberg, R. H.; Niblett, G. B. F. (1968-01-01). "Resistive Instabilities in a Low‐Energy Theta Pinch". The Physics of Fluids. 11 (1): 218–221. Bibcode:1968PhFl...11..218B. doi:10.1063/1.1691757. ISSN 0031-9171.
  13. Sze, H.; Smith, R.R.; Benford, J.N.; Harteneck, B.D. (1992). "Phase-locking of strongly coupled relativistic magnetrons". IEEE Transactions on Electromagnetic Compatibility. 34 (3): 235–241. Bibcode:1992ITElC..34..235S. doi:10.1109/15.155835. ISSN 1558-187X.
  14. Benford, J.; Benford, G. (2002). "Survey of pulse shortening in high-power microwave sources". IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 25 (2).
  15. Swegle, J.A.; Benford, J.N. (1998). "High-power microwaves at 25 years: The current state of development". 12th International Conference on High-Power Particle Beams. BEAMS'98. Proceedings (Cat. No.98EX103). Vol. 1. pp. 149–152 vol.1. doi:10.1109/BEAMS.1998.822405. ISBN 0-7803-4287-9. S2CID 120376230.
  16. Benford, James N.; Miller, Gabriel; Potter, Seth; Ashby, Steve; Smith, Richard R. (1995-05-01). "High Power Microwave Source Development". Archived from the original on January 17, 2022. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  17. Price, David; Goldman, Edward; Nett, David; Putnam, Sidney; Weidenheimer, Doug; Bloemker, Carl; White, Roger; Wynn, Tony (2003). "DEW Technology at the Titan Corporation" (PDF). 1st International Energy Conversion Engineering Conference (IECEC). pp. 1–11. doi:10.2514/6.2003-5913. ISBN 978-1-62410-088-8. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  18. "The High Power Microwave Facility: Orion" (PDF). apps.dtic.mil. Archived (PDF) from the original on January 18, 2022.
  19. Benford, James; Ecker, Bruce (1971-05-10). "Transport of Intense Relativistic Electron Beams in a z Pinch". Physical Review Letters. 26 (19): 1160–1163. Bibcode:1971PhRvL..26.1160B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.26.1160. ISSN 0031-9007.
  20. Benford, James; Sze, H.; Young, T.; Bromley, D.; Proulx, G. (1985). "Variations on the Relativistic Magnetron". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 13 (6): 538–544. Bibcode:1985ITPS...13..538B. doi:10.1109/TPS.1985.4316470. ISSN 0093-3813. S2CID 22500523.
  21. Price, D.; Benford, J.N. (1998). "General scaling of pulse shortening in explosive-emission-driven microwave sources". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 26 (3): 256–262. Bibcode:1998ITPS...26..256P. doi:10.1109/27.700752.
  22. Spark, S.N. (2001). "The high power microwave facility: Orion". IEE Symposium Pulsed Power 2001. Vol. 2001. London, UK: IEE. p. 13. doi:10.1049/ic:20010142.
  23. Benford, James (1987). "High power microwave simulator development". Microwave Journal. 30: 97–106. Bibcode:1987MiJo...30...97B. ISSN 0192-6225.
  24. "Microsoft Academic - James Benford". academic.microsoft.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-28. Retrieved 2021-12-28.
  25. "Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact (1960-Present Dell) comic books 1996". www.mycomicshop.com. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  26. "Breakthrough Initiatives". breakthroughinitiatives.org. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  27. Encyclopedia of applied physics. George L. Trigg. New York, N.Y.: Wiley. 2010. ISBN 978-3-527-60043-4. OCLC 516135307.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  28. Wiley‐Vch Verlag Gmbh & Co. Kgaa, ed. (2003). Major Reference Works. Wiley Online Library. doi:10.1002/3527600434. ISBN 9783527268412. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
  29. "2019 Shoemaker Lecture with Dr. James Benford | Beyond Center". live-asu-beyond-center.ws.asu.edu. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  30. IS ET Lurking In Our Cosmic Backyard? With James Benford and Paul Davies, retrieved 2022-01-10
  31. Looking for Technosignatures on the Moon with Dr. James Benford, retrieved 2022-01-10
  32. James Benford - Is ET Lurking in Our Cosmic Backyard? (TechnoClimes 2020), retrieved 2022-01-10
  33. "Members in the Media". www.aps.org. Retrieved 2022-01-10.
  34. "IEEE Fellows Directory - Alphabetical Listing". services27.ieee.org. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  35. "Summa Foundation - EMP and HPEM FELLOWS" (PDF). unm.edu.
  36. "VOID". fanac.org. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
  37. "James Benford - Routledge & CRC Press Author Profile". www.routledge.com. Retrieved 2022-01-17.
  38. "Google Scholar". scholar.google.es. Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  39. Benford, J.; Sze, H.; Woo, W.; Smith, R. R.; Harteneck, B. (1989-02-20). "Phase Locking of Relativistic Magnetrons". Physical Review Letters. 62 (8): 969–971. Bibcode:1989PhRvL..62..969B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.62.969. PMID 10040384.
  40. Benford, J.; Benford, G. (1997-04-01). "Survey of pulse shortening in high-power microwave sources". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 25 (2): 311–317. Bibcode:1997ITPS...25..311B. doi:10.1109/27.602505. ISSN 1939-9375. S2CID 55624109.
  41. Haworth, M.D.; Baca, G.; Benford, J.; Englert, T.; Hackett, K.; Hendricks, K.J.; Henley, D.; LaCour, M.; Lemke, R.W.; Price, D.; Ralph, D. (1998). "Significant pulse-lengthening in a multigigawatt magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 26 (3): 312–319. Bibcode:1998ITPS...26..312H. doi:10.1109/27.700759. ISSN 1939-9375.
  42. Benford, James (2008-06-01). "Space Applications of High-Power Microwaves". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 36 (3): 569–581. Bibcode:2008ITPS...36..569B. doi:10.1109/TPS.2008.923760. ISSN 1939-9375. S2CID 47137955.
  43. Benford, James; Benford, Gregory; Benford, Dominic (2010-06-01). "Messaging with Cost-Optimized Interstellar Beacons". Astrobiology. 10 (5): 475–490. arXiv:0810.3964. Bibcode:2010AsBio..10..475B. doi:10.1089/ast.2009.0393. ISSN 1531-1074. PMID 20624056. S2CID 24833741.
  44. "A Science Critique of Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson". www.centauri-dreams.org. Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  45. Benford, James N.; Benford, Dominic J. (2016-07-07). "Power Beaming Leakage Radiation as a SETI Observable". The Astrophysical Journal. 825 (2): 101. arXiv:1602.05485. Bibcode:2016ApJ...825..101B. doi:10.3847/0004-637X/825/2/101. ISSN 1538-4357. S2CID 118790653.
  46. Bennett, Christopher L.; McCarthy, Wil; Benford, Gregory (2018-01-01). Analog Science Fiction and Fact, May-June 2018. Fred Gambino (1st ed.). Dell Magazines.
  47. "Starship Century: Towards The Grandest Horizon edited by James Benford and Gregory Benford (book review)". SFcrowsnest. 2013-08-23. Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  48. Society, National Space (2014-07-06). "Book Review: Starship Century - National Space Society". Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  49. US 3831101, Benford, James Nelson; Putnam, Sidney Darwin & Stallings, Charles Henry, "Particle beam injection system", published 1974-08-20, assigned to Physics International Co.
  50. US application 2009224610, Fuks, Mikhail; Schamiloglu, Edl & Benford, James, "Systems and methods for generating high power, wideband microwave radiation using variable capacitance voltage multiplication", published 2009-09-10, assigned to General Dynamics Ordnance & Tactical Systems- Canada Inc., now abandoned.
  51. Sze, H.; Benford, J.; Young, T.; Bromley, D.; Harteneck, B. (1985). "A Radially and Axially Extracted Virtual-Cathode Oscillator (Vircator)". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 13 (6): 492–497. Bibcode:1985ITPS...13..492S. doi:10.1109/TPS.1985.4316463. ISSN 1939-9375. S2CID 41071107.
  52. Benford, J.; Price, D.; Sze, H.; Bromley, D. (1987-03-01). "Interaction of a vircator microwave generator with an enclosing resonant cavity". Journal of Applied Physics. 61 (5): 2098–2100. Bibcode:1987JAP....61.2098B. doi:10.1063/1.337965. ISSN 0021-8979.
  53. Price, D.; Sze, H.; Fittinghoff, D.; Harteneck, B.; Benford, J. (1989-07-25). Brandt, Howard E (ed.). "High-Power Vircator Phase-Locking Demonstrations At Physics International". Microwave and Particle Beam Sources and Directed Energy Concepts. SPIE. 1061: 206–221. Bibcode:1989SPIE.1061..206P. doi:10.1117/12.951798. S2CID 111008656.
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