Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the department of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine.

[1] Benford wrote the Galactic Center Saga science fiction novels, beginning with In the Ocean of Night (1977).

This scientific procedural novel eventually loaned its title to a line of science fiction published by Pocket Books.

Other novels published in that period include several near-future science thrillers: Cosm (1998), The Martian Race (1999) and Eater (2000).

[citation needed] Benford has served as an editor of numerous alternate history anthologies, as well as collections of Hugo Award winners.

In 2004, Benford proposed that the harmful effects of global warming could be reduced by the construction of a rotating Fresnel lens 1,000 kilometres across, floating in space at the Lagrangian point L1.

According to Benford, this lens would diffuse the light from the Sun and reduce the solar energy reaching the Earth by approximately 0.5% to 1%.

[14] A similar space sunshade was proposed in 1989 by J. T. Early,[15] and again in 1997 by Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, and Roderick Hyde.

[16] In 2006, Benford pointed out one possible danger in this approach: if this lens were built and global warming were avoided, there would be less incentive to reduce greenhouse gases, and humans might continue to produce too much carbon dioxide until it caused some other environmental catastrophe, such as a chemical change in ocean water that could be disastrous to ocean life.

Benford's law of controversy is an adage from the 1980 novel Timescape:[21] Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.