This book is about the work of 10 great scientists; who they were and are, their personal background and how they achieved their outstanding results and took their prominent place in science history. We follow one of physics and science history's most enigmatic phenomena, superconductivity, through 100 years, from its discovery in 1911 to the present, not as a history book in the usual sense, but through close ups of the leading characters and their role in that story, the Nobel laureates, who were still among us in the years 2001-2004 when the main round of interviews was carried out. Since then two of them already passed away. For each one of the 10 laureates, the author tells their story by direct quotation from interviews in their own words. Each chapter treats one laureate. The author first gives a brief account of the laureates' scientific background and main contribution. Then each laureate tells his own story in his own words. This book is unique in its approach to science history.
Author(s): Kristian Fossheim (auth.)
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 140
Tags: Strongly Correlated Systems, Superconductivity;History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics;Low Temperature Physics;Optical and Electronic Materials
Front Matter....Pages I-XIII
Introduction....Pages 1-7
Vitaly L. Ginzburg: The Ginzburg-Landau Theory of Superconductivity....Pages 9-16
Alexei A. Abrikosov: The Magnetic Structure of Type II Superconductors....Pages 17-28
Leon N. Cooper: The Microscopic Theory of Superconductivity....Pages 29-39
John Robert Schrieffer: The Microscopic Theory of Superconductivity....Pages 41-51
Ivar Giaever: Single Particle Tunnelling: Confirming the BCS-Theory....Pages 53-65
Brian D. Josephson: Cooper Pair Tunnelling: The Josephson Effects....Pages 67-71
Philip W. Anderson: Superconductivity from a Broader Perspective....Pages 73-88
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes: The Orsay Group on Superconductivity....Pages 89-101
Johannes Georg Bednorz: Discovery of Cuprate Superconductors....Pages 103-116
K. Alexander Müller: Discovery of Cuprate Superconductors....Pages 117-127
The Anderson-Higgs Mechanism for the Meissner Effect in Superconductors....Pages 129-131
Concluding Remarks....Pages 133-135
Back Matter....Pages 137-140
