Chapter 1
The Beginning of a New Age

In fall 1986 scientists, Dr. Johannes Georg Bednorz and Dr. Karl Alexander Müller, in Zurich, Switzerland at IBM research laboratories discovered something spectacular. They found a group of ceramics that were superconductive at a much higher temperature than any other known material.

Superconductivity is the ability some materials have that, at normally very low temperatures, conduct electricity without any loss of energy. The ceramics Bednorz and Müller created were able to be superconductive at a much higher temperature than before.

This discovery caught much public attention. This also led to the development of superconductors with even higher temperatures.

The Superconductor Revolution
Bednorz and Müller helped start the beginning of high temperature superconductors. Bednorz and Müller received the Nobel Prize in physics in 1987. At New York Hilton’s Sutton Ballroom a conference on high temperature superconductors was held in March 1987. Three thousand physicists packed the place within a matter of minutes. This conference went on for eight hours. Physicist Michael Schluter of AT&T Bell Laboratories called it the, "Woodstock of physics."

Superconductors are the Future
Many countries of the world are convinced that superconductors are the technology of the future, and are giving large amounts of money in its research. It is predicted that superconductors will save billions of dollars. Magnetically levitated trains, magnetic resonance imaging, superconducting generators, supercomputers, and motors are just some of the things superconductors can do today. Who knows what it holds for the future?

"Superconductivity is perhaps the most remarkable physical property in the universe"
- David Pines, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Center for Advanced Study Professor of physics and electrical and computing engineering