Word: schrieffer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bardeen shared this year's physics prize (worth $98,100) with his former University of Illinois colleagues, Leon N. Cooper, 42, now of Brown University, and John R. Schrieffer, 41, of the University of Pennsylvania. They were honored for their fundamental work on superconductivity, a phenomenon that occurs in certain metals when they are chilled close to absolute zero (minus 459.7° F.). In that state, they lose all resistance to the flow of electric current...
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...