Bogdan Cvete Maglić (

anglicized Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

Maglich, August 5, 1928 – November 25, 2017) was a Serbian-American experimental

nuclear physicist Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

and the leading advocate of a purported non-radioactive

aneutronic fusion Aneutronic fusion is any form of fusion power in which very little of the energy released is carried by Neutron, neutrons. While the lowest-threshold Nuclear fusion#Important reactions, nuclear fusion reactions release up to 80% of their energy in ...

energy source. Maglich built four models of ''

Migma Migma, sometimes migmatron or migmacell, was a proposed colliding beam fusion reactor designed by Bogdan Maglich in 1969. Migma uses self-intersecting beams of ions from small particle accelerators to force the ions to fuse. Similar systems usin ...

'', devices producing fusion of deuterium atoms in colliding ion beams.

Education and academic work

Maglich received his Bachelor of Science degree from the

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade () is a public university, public research university in Belgrade, Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it me ...

in 1951, his Master of Science from the

University of Liverpool The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL) is a Public university, public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded in 1881 as University College Liverpool, Victoria University (United Kingdom), Victoria University, it received Ro ...

in 1955, and his Ph.D. in high-energy physics and nuclear engineering from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

in 1959. Upon receiving his Ph.D., Maglich joined Dr.

Luis Walter Alvarez Luis Walter Alvarez (June 13, 1911 – September 1, 1988) was an American experimental physicist, inventor, and professor who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his discovery of resonance (particle physics), resonance states in ...

's research group at Lawrence Berkeley Lab. During this time, he, along with Fred Kirsten, invented the "sonic spark chamber", the first film-less spark chamber particle detector system. Maglich participated in the discovery of the

omega meson The omega meson () is a flavourless meson formed from a superposition of an up quark–antiquark and a down quark–antiquark pair. It is part of the vector meson nonet and mediates the nuclear force along with pions and rho mesons. Propertie ...

, as described in Alvarez's Nobel lecture: Between 1963 and 1967, he worked at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

) in

Geneva, Switzerland Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic and Ca ...

. While conducting research at CERN, he invented the "missing mass spectrometer". With this instrument, his team of French and Swiss physicists reported the discovery of seven mesons. In 1967, Maglich joined the faculty of the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

, as well as being visiting faculty at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. In 1969, he became professor and principal investigator for high energy physics at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

. In 1974, he left academia to pursue his research in the private sector.

Early work

Maglich first rose to prominence in his field working on a team at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

Lawrence Radiation Laboratory Lawrence may refer to: Education Colleges and universities * Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States * Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States Preparator ...

analyzing liquid hydrogen

bubble chamber A bubble chamber is a vessel filled with a superheated transparent liquid (most often liquid hydrogen) used to detect electrically charged particles moving through it. It was invented in 1952 by Donald A. Glaser, for which he was awarded th ...

data from Berkeley's

bevatron The Bevatron was a particle accelerator — specifically, a Weak focusing, weak-focusing proton synchrotron — located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, U.S., which began operations in 1954. The antiproton was discovered there in ...

accelerator. The team, which also included Luis W. Alvarez, Arthur H. Rosenfeld, and Lynn Stevenson, discovered the first solid experimental evidence for the existence of the ω

meson In particle physics, a meson () is a type of hadronic subatomic particle composed of an equal number of quarks and antiquarks, usually one of each, bound together by the strong interaction. Because mesons are composed of quark subparticles, the ...

resonance. (In 1968, Luis Alvarez was awarded a

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; ; ) are awards administered by the Nobel Foundation and granted in accordance with the principle of "for the greatest benefit to humankind". The prizes were first awarded in 1901, marking the fifth anniversary of Alfred N ...

for this and related work.) Maglich's contribution to this discovery led to him receiving a White House citation from President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

and being named an honorary citizen in Switzerland by the president of the

Swiss Confederation Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerlan ...

. Toward the end of the 1960s, R. Macek and Maglich proposed "the principle of self colliding orbits" and the perceptron, a self-colliding particle beam accelerator originally proposed for studying pion-pion collisions. Shortly thereafter, in the early 1970s, the perceptron design formed the basis for Maglich's "migmatron" concept of a self-colliding ion beam fusion reactor.

Business ventures

In his attempts to raise funding for his magma research, Maglich has been associated with a string of business ventures. In 1974, he formed MIGMA Institute of High Energy Fusion, Fusion Energy Corp. From 1985 to 1987, he was CEO and principal investigator of Aneutronic Energy Labs of United Sciences, Inc. at Princeton, a research firm also known as AELabs. It was during this time that Maglich worked under a research grant from the United States Air Force to attempt to develop his migmatron concept into a compact power source for spacecraft with Bechtel Corp. From 1988 to 1993, he was CEO of Advanced Physics Corporation, chaired by

Glenn T. Seaborg Glenn Theodore Seaborg ( ; April 19, 1912February 25, 1999) was an American chemist whose involvement in the synthesis, discovery and investigation of ten transuranium elements earned him a share of the 1951 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His work i ...

. In 1995, Maglich founded HiEnergy Microdevices, which later became HiEnergy Technologies, Inc., a developer and manufacturer of neutron-based bomb detection equipment based on his invention of "atometery". He continued to occupy various positions with that company until being terminated for cause. Sixteen months after Maglich's departure, HiEnergy Technologies declared bankruptcy in 2007 but was restructured with the formation of Clear Path Technologies, Inc. Under new management, Clear Path Technologies was able to commercialize "atometry" into various award-winning threat materials and explosives detection devices sold to state, federal and foreign government counter-terrorism agencies. HiEnergy Technologies, Inc. Announces Decision to Seek Bankruptcy Protection to Address Financial and Operational Challenges
/ref> After leaving HiEnergy Technologies, Maglich became the chief technology officer of California Science & Engineering Corporation (CALSEC).

Personal life

The son of a lawyer and elected member of the Yugoslav Royal Parliament, Maglich (at age 13) and his mother were imprisoned in a Croatian

Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian fascist and ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaša – Croatian Revolutionar ...

(Nazi-affiliated) concentration camp for Serbs, but managed to escape. Maglich has five children: Angelica (born 1989) and Aleksandra Maglich (born 1991), from a prior marriage to UCLA media artist Victoria Vesna; also Marko (born 1960), Ivanka (born 1961) and Roberta (born 1972).

References

External links

"Science: Nature's Onion"
''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

''. September 15, 1961.
"Company Interview: Bogdan Maglich: HiEnergy Technologies, Inc."
''

The Wall Street Transcript ''The Wall Street Transcript'' is a paid subscription publication and Web site that publishes bi-weekly industry reports that feature equity analyst, money manager and CEO interviews. Reports typically cover two to three industries and express ...

''. January 9, 2006.
"Visionary Physicist's Crusade Serves As Lesson In Futility"
'' The Scientist''. November 27, 1989. 3 (23): 1. *Maglich, Bogdan (January 20, 1990)
"Letter: Migma Omissions"
''The Scientist''. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maglich, Bogdan 1928 births 2017 deaths American physicists Serbian physicists Yugoslav emigrants to the United States University of Belgrade Faculty of Physics alumni Yugoslav physicists People from Sombor People associated with CERN Yugoslav expatriates in the United Kingdom Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni