The high times of physics revisited
Quote from BBC Article:
“But when further experiments by Paul Chu and his team at the universities of Houston and Alabama demonstrated superconductivity at 93K (-170C), ripples spread throughout the physics community.
Their demonstration, 51 degrees higher than Bednorz and Mueller's, broke through a critical barrier on the path to usable high temperature superconductors (HTSC) - namely, the temperature of liquid nitrogen.
This fluid is a major industrial commodity, easy to handle, plentiful, non-polluting, and - importantly - cheap.
Achieving superconductivity above liquid nitrogen temperatures was the holy grail of the field, and Paul Chu showed it could be grasped.
Ever since rumours of a higher-than-liquid-nitrogen superconductor began to circulate, the intrigue and secrecy within the scientific community had rivalled that surrounding the double helix discovery three decades earlier.
Researchers from around the world started trying to reproduce the results and work out the exact composition of Chu's material.
You'll find only one "official" abstract on HTSC in the programme of the 1987 APS General Meeting.
But the flurry of research and the number of new results convinced the normally staid and conservative APS bureaucracy to allow the convening of a special session granting all who applied five minutes to deliver their most recent results.
What followed was a mammoth romp through the world of superconductivity, headlined by star attractions Alex Mueller and Paul Chu.
Results were presented, challenged, questioned and occasionally hotly disputed.
At times the talk was deeply theoretical, but at others people speculated on the applications that could be just around the corner.
And the showmanship continued well into the night, eventually fizzling out around 3am when even the faithful began to tire.
All those who were there knew they were witnessing the advent of a new and exciting rebirth of superconductivity, which had lain moribund and under-funded for the better part of a decade.
The flood gates of research money were about to be opened, and everybody wanted their share.”
