James R. Powell was an American physicist, notable – together with

Gordon Danby Gordon Thompson Danby (November 8, 1929 – August 2, 2016) was a Canadian-American physicist notable (together with Dr. James R. Powell) for his work on superconducting Maglev, for which he shared the Franklin Institute 'Medal 2000 for Engineer ...

– for his work on

superconducting Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where Electrical resistance and conductance, electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic field, magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material e ...

Maglev Maglev (derived from '' magnetic levitation''), is a system of train transportation that uses two sets of electromagnets: one set to repel and push the train up off the track, and another set to move the elevated train ahead, taking advantage ...

, for which he shared the Franklin Institute "Medal 2000 for Engineering". He was a Director of the MAGLEV 2000 of Florida Corporation and Danby Powell Maglev Technology Corporation. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering in 1953 from

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

(now

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

) and his Sc.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1958. He joined

Brookhaven National Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...

(BNL) in 1956 where he became a tenured Senior Nuclear Engineer. He retired in late 1996. Powell passed on May 23, 2019. His inventions, including the inductive levitation and stabilization guideway, null flux geometry, and Linear Synchronous Motor for vehicle propulsion, are the basis for the 500 kilometer (300 mile) Tokyo to Nagoya maglev route planned to be operational 2027. He also has worked on pebble-bed

nuclear reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...

. He was a lead developer of the

StarTram StarTram is a proposed space launch system propelled by maglev. The initial Generation 1 facility would launch cargo only, launching from a mountain peak at an altitude of with an evacuated tube staying at local surface level; it has been clai ...

proposal.

References

Year of birth missing 20th-century scientists 21st-century American physicists Benjamin Franklin Medal (Franklin Institute) laureates {{US-physicist-stub