Word: bednorz
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...include a stipend of $340,000. Indeed, recognition of even the most significant scientific discoveries can take decades. But the research that earned this year's Physics Prize was such an obvious breakthrough that the academy acted with remarkable haste. Karl Alex Muller, 60, of Switzerland and Johannes Georg Bednorz, 37, a West German, became laureates less than two years after their discovery of high-temperature superconductivity and just a year after their findings were first published...
...dramatic development, Bednorz and Muller revived a slow-moving area of modern physics and turned it into a white-hot field of research. Superconductivity is the phenomenon in which a conducting material loses its normal resistance to the passage of electricity; since virtually no energy is lost, any electric device becomes far more efficient when built with superconductors. The catch is that superconductivity usually occurs only near 0 K (Kelvin), or -460 degrees F, which means the materials must be cooled by expensive, hard-to-handle liquid helium, thus sharply limiting practical applications...
...prize. That level of cooling can be achieved with more readily available liquid nitrogen. Suddenly, a wide range of applications seems economically feasible: trains that ride on a cushion of magnetism; smaller, faster supercomputers; more powerful medical imaging machines; and 100%-efficient power lines. The superfast train, notes Bednorz, "is a real dream of mine...
...Sicily. Although most existing superconductors were metals, theorists had suggested that ceramics, which usually act as insulators at room temperature, might also work because of their molecular structure. Stirred by a lecture on the subject, Muller started thinking about specific kinds of ceramics that might do the job. Says Bednorz: "As outsiders in the superconductor area, we could afford to tackle unconventional ideas." Was the award a surprise? "Based on the interest our work aroused, one could have expected it," says Muller, "but when it is reality, it seems unreal...
...Nobel prize winners took the first step in an area which scientists have been trying to explore for over a decade. Since Bednorz and Mueller made their discovery, others researching high temperature superconductors have made further developments in the field, Tinkham said...