Friday, May 27, 2011

Singing superlatives of superconductivity

I recently gave two lectures on superconductivity to a fourth year undergraduate Condensed Matter Physics course. In hindsight, there are few points that I did not discuss but should have included:
  • the relevance of BCS theory and Cooper pairing to nuclear physics and neutron stars
  • how the Meissner effect can be viewed as a photon obtaining mass and that this idea is key to electro-weak theory and to the Higgs boson
These issues are nicely discussed in an article Superconductivity's Smorgasbord of Insights: A Movable Feast by Adrian Cho which appeared in Science last month to celebrate the Centenary of Kamerlingh Onnes discovery. It contains the figure below.
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