Word: schrieffer
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...from the laboratory to the marketplace will be no easy task. "What worries me is that people may come to think that they're going to buy superconducting circular saws at Sears next year," says Don Capone, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. Concurs Nobel Laureate Robert Schrieffer, who shared the 1972 prize for developing a theory of how superconductors work: "It's time for everyone to catch their breath and try to understand what Mother Nature has presented...
...these are just the most obvious examples. Scientists like Robert Schrieffer, who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics for the first successful theory of how superconductivity works, believe its most dramatic applications have yet to be conceived. "When transistors were first invented, we knew they'd replace tubes," Schrieffer says. "But no one had any idea there would someday be large-scale integrated circuits." Robert Cava of Bell Labs agrees. "We don't know where this will lead," he says. "It's exciting -- and I guess frightening at the same time...
While scientists know the chemical composition of the new class of superconductors, they are less certain about how they work. True, a theory exists that explains low-temperature superconductivity. It is known as BCS, from the initials of Author John Bardeen and his colleagues Leon Cooper and Robert Schrieffer, who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physics for their effort. But BCS may not apply to the strange goings-on at higher temperatures...
...scrapped as an explanation for the behavior of higher-temperature superconductors. According to Bardeen, his theory can explain superconductivity up to around 40 K. But at 90 K, he says, "I think it's highly unlikely. We no doubt are going to need a new mechanism." In fact, says Schrieffer, "superconductivity may turn out to have as many causes as the common cold...
Although superconductivity was discovered in 1911, it was not really explained until Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer offered their now-famous "BCS theory" (from their initials) in 1957. At extremely low temperatures, they said, electrons are coupled with one another (in so-called Cooper pairs), cease their random collisions and flow unhindered. Superconductivity may lead to more efficient transmission of electrical power, better transportation systems, and even harnessing the energy of thermonuclear fusion...