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Community Corner

Lafayette Man Attracts Earthly Attention With His Benford Beams - Is Anyone Else Listening?

Eternal curiosity might be considered a curse by some, but for Dr. James Benford, it's what drives him - be it at dinner, or while sending radio messages into the heavens. His theories are attracting attention. He hopes his messages are, too.

Dr. James Benford could be considered a poster child for the city of Lafayette. He is well-educated, affluent, interested in local government, passionate about his garden and concerned about plans for population expansion in the city.

What sets Benford apart from his neighbors is that he is an international authority on interstellar communication. His research, shared with his twin brother Gregory and son Dominic, is a paradigm shift in the way scientists search for signals from extraterrestrial sources.

In short, Benford suggests that alien communication might be dispatched in short, high-powered bursts instead of long, data-laden surges. The analogy used by national media is "Twitter vs. War and Peace," meant to describe the difference in length and complexity of potential communiqués.

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The research conducted by Benford and his family was published in a series of papers in the science journal Astrobiology. Scientists now refer to their theory as the "Benford beams," and Benford has found himself fielding interviews from Time Magazine, BBC Radio and MSNBC. Benford is no stranger to media inquiries, as he is considered the foremost authority on high power microwave science.

Despite his notoriety in the international physics community and national media, Benford enjoys the space and privacy afforded to him as a Lafayette resident. When his name hit the news a few weeks ago, his neighbor came over to express surprise that she had never known what he did for a living. Lamorinda Patch was happy to provide a closer look at the man who is known by so few locally.

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Benford moved to his Upper Happy Valley home in 1969, with his wife Hilary and their two children, Dominic and Vanessa. His kids attended Acalanes High and his wife taught French at the school. Benford worked at Physics International in San Leandro for 26 years, serving as the chief of the company's Microwave Division.

After tiring of the bureaucratic constraints of working for a research and development company, Benford left and founded Microwave Sciences, Inc. MSI is considered a virtual corporation in that it employs only one person and subcontracts all other services out.

Depending on the project, Benford can find himself collaborating with agencies as large as the University of California and as small as Errands Plus, his wife's small bookkeeping company.

Benford enjoys the autonomy available to him now that he works for himself. He runs the business out of his home office center, with plenty of room to host meetings and guests. Since he does not have any employees, the regulations set upon his company are much looser than they would be at a larger organization.

Much of Benford's work is educational, so he finds himself traveling often to teach in foreign countries like India and China. He published a textbook, called High Power Microwaves, which is considered the defining book of the field. Benford visits universities all over the world to teach engineers, physicists and scientists about his work. His favorite country to visit is Australia, where his daughter Vanessa now lives.

Meeting Benford, one gets the distinct impression that he has a large capacity for curiosity in all spheres of life. While dining at Artisan Bistro in Lafayette, Benford became interested in the physics of how his chicken sous-vide had been prepared. The server explained that the chicken was "cooked" in a sealed bag for 2 hours at a temperature of 58 degrees Farenheit, which puzzled Benford.

"Food changes when it is cooked," said Benford, "but I don't know that sealing it below room temperature is cooking it."

Culinary curiosities aside, Benford also displays a keen knowledge of everything from local politics (he thinks the charter city initiative is "patently absurd") to gardening. He specializes in cacti and succulents, noting that caring for plants is not for the lazy.

"Eternal vigilence is the price of gardening," Benford laughs, playing with the famous Wendell Phillips quote about liberty.

Benford's friendly, unpretentious nature is a complement to his highly technical work ethic. In 2000 he led the first team to launch a sail using microwave propulsion. He consults with private companies about preventing potential electromagnetic attacks, and his associates contact him for all things microwave power related. Some of his work is classified.

When asked if the "Benford beams" theory is regarded with a high degree of legitimacy in the scientific community, Benford smiles and references the zoo hypothesis to answer the question. His explanation offers a mysterious but affirming conclusion.

The zoo hypothesis postulates that if an advanced civilization were observing our planet, they would do so passively, without interfering. Benford explains that there are two schools of thought about how humans should react to this possibility of being observed: we could shout so they can hear us, by broadcasting messages into the infinite void until we are heard.

"The other school of thought is that you should never shout in a jungle," Benford smiles mischievously before he continues. "Because you never know where the predators are."

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