Ira Borah Bernstein (born November 8, 1924) is an American theoretical physicist specializing in plasma physics.
[1] He was the first person to formulate the theory of electrostatic waves propagating in a magnetized plasma in 1958, which are now commonly known as Bernstein waves in plasma physics.
[2] Bernstein's other theoretical contributions include the development of the energy principle in the study of plasma instabilities,[3] as well as formulating the exact (one-dimensional) solution to electrostatic wave propagation in an unmagnetized plasma also known as Bernstein–Greene–Kruskal modes.
[4] Bernstein studied chemical engineering at the City College of New York (Baccalaureate 1944)[5] and in 1950 received his PhD from New York University with his thesis entitled "Improved Calculations on Cascade Shower Theory".
From 1954 to 1964, he was a scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, where he was a participant as a senior scientist in Project Matterhorn when the project involved secret U.S. government research on magnetic fusion.