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SUPERCONDUCTING_STATE

                                                     March 1, 2012

  Paul Chu's group at University of Houston
  announced a breakthrough in high-Tc
  superconductors: they'd found a material      The material was Yttrium
  that was superconducting up above the         Barium Copper Oxide (YBCO)
  temperature of liquid nitrogen (77K).         and this class of materials
                                                is often just called "the
    He had the temerity to                      cuprates".
    "alert the media".  A lot
    of us first heard about                     Getting past the 77K
    this result through the                     barrier was breakthrough in
    New York Times.                             cost reduction.  Not as
                               Rather than      good as "room temperature"
                               an obscure       but gettting there-- with
    Immediately after that     journal          the caveat that Tc is
    there appeared to be       vetted by        measured with zero-magnetic
    what I would call an       the glorious     field and practical
    "unplanned conspiracy"     peer-review      applications always have
    to slap him down.          process.         *some* field, so you need
                                                some wiggle room.
                                                A superconducting magnet,
      We were all going beserk                  cooled by liquid nitrogen,
      working on the cuprates,                  needs a Tc somewhat higher
      largely due to Chu's                      than 77K.
      discovery and the publicity
      he managed to garner with
      his unorthodox publicity
      campaign.

      But you would not know
      this from reading the
      technical papers in the          And around the same time,
      field: every single one          I was hearing some things
      of them referenced an            that in retrospect sound like
      earlier breakthough              a whispering campaign to
      that had pointed the             smear Paul Chu:
      way for Paul Chu's
      group: Bednorz and                           "Our group sent one of our
      Mueller of IBM Zurich:                       samples to Paul Chu's
                                                   group and he says they
          "Ever since Bednorz and                  *lost* it, can you believe
          Mueller [1] discovered --"               that?"

      That inane, introductory phrase was
      repeated over-and-over again, because
      the IBM Zurich group had backs worth
      scratching, and it was considered
      very important to snub those uppity
      bastards at a mere State University
      in *Texas* of all places.

          The Nobel prize commitee rushed
          through a prize for Bednorz and         Oh but Chu's work
          Mueller while Paul Chu's work was       was merely experimental!
          still too new to be eligible: they
          *could* have held off for a year        But (a) the Nobel isn't
          and given it to Bednorz, Mueller        given solely for theoretical
          *and* Chu, but...                       work and (b) Chu was not
                                                  just shooting in the dark:
             Well no, Paul Chu wasn't             he was using chemical
             passed over exactly, he's            substitutions to try to
             still eligible for The               strain the lattice in the
             Prize in later years--               same way that high pressure
                                                  would, following up a result
                Two prizes for                    that showed high pressure
                one breakthrough?                 elevated the critical
                As though that's                  temperature.
                ever happened.        
                                     
                                     
                                    






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