Talk:Gregory Benford

Timescape author(s)
Amazon and http://www.sffworld.com/book/229.html both only give GB as the author, and that's all I remember from when I read the book. The only Google hits for HB are the present Wik articcle and a Russian page giving HB as daughter-in-law (?) and co-author. Is there any serious support for claiming she co-authored the book?


 * I have now removed the sil, since no one responded, and the originator used no nmae for contacting her/him. Kdammers 10:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Book list on talk page?
Is there a reasion the book list on on the talk page and not the main page, or even linked from the main page to another page like List of books by Gregory Benford? Zvar 00:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * maybe because it's lifted with-out change from another site? I don't know if there is some policy or legal problem here.  If not, then I think it should go onto the main page or a a link to the source  at least be given if it isn't already. Kdammers 01:40, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Question on attribution of Corollary on Clarke's Third Law
The reference seems to be Greg's use in Foundation's Fear in 1997. I've always heard this attributed to Dr. Barry Gehm. There is an attibution in a signature from a newsgroup posting in 1994. Do we have a definitive reference for origination of this corollary? --WikiTraveller 02:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Further investigation indicates it was published in Analog in 1991 and attributed to Dr. Gehm. --WikiTraveller 02:20, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Hard SF
Why the deletion? Hard SF exists as an article, and GB certainly is a significant HSF writer. Kdammers 00:55, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

Perhpas it should me mentioned, though God knows I'm not going to do it, that he is a close friend of Stephen Hawking. Here's some proof: http://www.reason.com/news/show/28378.html

Plagiarism
Shouldn't Benford's plagiarism of Hoyle's The Black Cloud in Eater be mentioned? laddiebuck 22:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Only if you have documented proof of the claim and actuality of plagiarism. And similarity of ideas is not plagiarism. Shsilver 01:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's not plagiarism of Hoyle, it's a homage to Hoyle.Rich (talk) 20:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 09:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Dying women as a recurring theme?
Did Benford actually lose a girlfriend or wife to disease at some point in his life? There are at least two books -- Eater and Across the Sea of Suns -- where a woman dying of some degenerative disease is a major motivator for a major character. --Rpresser 16:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

footnote 8 is a dead link
I tried to remove it, but when previewed my edit, it was messed up, so I have backed off on it for now.Rich (talk) 05:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Notability
Could someone point me to a source which establishes this person's notability? Just wondering, thanks (: BE——Critical __Talk 22:07, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Assuming this is not some kind of silly joke: he's won two Nebula Awards (12 nominations), been nominated four times for Hugo Awards, won the John W. Campbell Award, and the Ditmar Award. He's won the Lord Foundation Award for achievement in the sciences, but we don't have an article on that (won by such non-entities as James Watson and Isaac Asimov). He was also the Guest of Honor at a World Science Fiction Convention. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  13:36, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

First computer virus
I temporarily removed the following paragraph:
 * Benford created the first computer virus in the late 1960s. He propagated a simple virus on ARPANet and discussed possible problems with future, malign viruses with the computer group at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, where he was a post-doc for Edward Teller and later a staff member. He then wrote an early short story about the idea, terming it a "virus" and foreseeing how some could profit from them. 

For such a strong claim (creator of the first computer virus) the source is way to weak. There needs to be a reputable 3rd party source confirming that. Note that the article computer virus doesn't mentionen Benford in that regard but instead list Bob Thomas as the creator of the "first" arpanet virus.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:00, 28 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Just finished with self-replicating machines which has been misattributing the plot of Benford's "The Scarred Man" to another author/title, for years, apparently, lol. Regardless of who wrote the first one, Benford's is the first fiction, 1970 (Predating Thomas' virus, 1971.). It was picked up in Thomas Easton's Visions of Tomorrow: Science Fiction Predictions that Came True which I'll cite. Ukrpickaxe (talk) 23:47, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I removed that section nevertheless. As given this is very strong claim that needs to be backed by reputable independent sources, that is ideally scholarly sources on the history of SF and the history computer science/computer viruses and if not that least some established reputable journalistic sources. It cannot simply sourced with the author's website and that review by Goldstein on that SF website. If just want to rely on the Scarred Man story and authors website as primary sources, then you need to modify a claim along the lines of: "According to Benford he wrote a viruslike program in his lab that inspired him to write an early SF story about viruses", "Benford wrote an early story involving the idea of computer viruses" or "Benford wrote one of the first SF stories involving computer viruses" and give a short summary of the content.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:38, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Biography
I would like to have added the following biographical paragraph written by Gregory Benford. I have been told by Magnolia677 that I have a conflict of interest because I know Mr. Benford and cannot post this myself. She has told me to include the text of the proposed edit here, so that some "neutral" editor could view it and hopefully add it to his page. The purpose of the addition is to link to the cities indicated so that Mr. Benford can be linked to the Notable People sections of these cities. I add or change nothing to Mr. Benford's page on my own, only paste in on rare occasion what he has written and asks me to add.

This is what Mr. Benford has asked me to do: Could you add me to these lists? :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Laguna_Beach,_California#Writers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Orange_County,_California

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairhope,_Alabama#Notable_people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertsdale,_Alabama

Thank you.

Benford lived in Robertsdale and Fairhope, Alabama while growing up with his twin brother. At one point he and brother James attended a one-room schoolhouse in Barnwell County, and otherwise went to schools in the area. In 1949 the family moved to Tokyo because his father, James Alton Benford, had returned to Army service after his role in World War II, fighting from Normandy to Austria. James Alton Benford served as a staff officer for General McArthur in the Korean War and the twins lived in Tokyo, then Atlanta (Fr. McPherson) and then three years in occupied Germany (Giessen and Frankfurt). They returned to the USA, finishing high school in Dallas (1957-1959), then attended the University of Oklahoma (1959-1963). Gregory was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 1963 and went with his twin to UCSD on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, receiving a PhD in Physics in 1967. He was a postdoctoral fellow with Edward Teller at the Lawrence Livermore Lab 1967-1969, a Research Physicist (1969-71) and then an Assistant Professor of Physics (1971-73) and Associate Professor of Physics (1973-1979), full Professor (1979-2006) at the University of California, Irvine. He has been a long-time resident of Laguna Beach, California. (1971-present), located in Orange County, CA and Irvine (2001-present), as well as Mammoth, CA (2006-present).Dave Truesdale (talk) 18:47, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

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Stroke?
Benford had a significant stroke at the end of 2022. He was getting better as of end of Feb 2023, but I have not seen any further info beyond that. This probably should be mentioned somewhere in this. 12:55, 8 June 2023 (UTC) OBloodyHell (talk) 12:55, 8 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Repeat. Same concern. No further information, but this seems appropriate to mention somewhere. --OBloodyHell (talk) 21:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)