Woodstock of physics
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The term "Woodstock of physics" is often used by
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
s to refer to the marathon session of the
American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
’s meeting on March 18, 1987, which featured 51 presentations of recent discoveries in the science of
high-temperature superconductor High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-c or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above , the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The adjective "high temperature" is only in respect to previ ...
s. Various presenters anticipated that these new materials would soon result in revolutionary technological applications, but in the three subsequent decades, this proved to be overly optimistic. The name is a reference to the 1969
Woodstock Music and Art Festival Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
. Before a series of breakthroughs in the mid-1980s, most scientists believed that the extremely low temperature requirements of superconductors rendered them impractical for everyday use. However, by March 1987, a flurry of recent research on
ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
superconductors had succeeded in creating ever-higher superconducting temperatures, including the discovery by the
University of Houston The University of Houston (UH) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas. Founded in 1927, UH is a member of the University of Houston System and the List of universities in Texas by enrollment, university in Texas ...
's Paul Chu of a superconductor that operated at a temperature that could be achieved by cooling with
liquid nitrogen Liquid nitrogen—LN2—is nitrogen in a liquid state at low temperature. Liquid nitrogen has a boiling point of about . It is produced industrially by fractional distillation of liquid air. It is a colorless, low viscosity liquid that is wide ...
. The scientific community was abuzz with excitement. The discoveries were so recent that no papers on them had been submitted by the deadline. However, the Society added a last-minute session to their annual meeting to discuss the new research. The session was chaired by physicist M. Brian Maple, a superconductor researcher himself, who was one of the meeting's organizers. It was scheduled to start at 7:30 pm in the Sutton ballroom of the
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, but excited scientists started lining up at 5:30. Key researchers such as Chu and
Karl Alexander Müller Karl may refer to: People * Karl (given name), including a list of people and characters with the name * Karl der Große, commonly known in English as Charlemagne * Karl Marx, German philosopher and political writer * Karl of Austria, last Austria ...
(who would win the 1987
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
in Physics for his work in superconductors with
Georg Bednorz Johannes Georg Bednorz (; born 16 May 1950) is a German physicist who, together with K. Alex Müller, discovered high-temperature superconductivity in ceramics, for which they shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics. Life and work Bednorz was bor ...
) were given 10 minutes to describe their research; other physicists were given five minutes. Nearly 2,000 scientists tried to squeeze into the ballroom. Those who could not find a seat filled the aisles or watched outside the room on television monitors. The session ended at 3:15 am, but many lingered until dawn to discuss the presentations. The meeting caused a surge in mainstream media interest in superconductors, and laboratories around the world raced to pursue breakthroughs in the field. By the following year (1988) two new families of copper-oxide superconductorsthe bismuth based or so-called
BSCCO Bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (BSCCO, pronounced ''bisko''), is a type of cuprate superconductor having the generalized chemical formula Bi2 Sr2 Ca''n''−1 Cu''n'' O2''n''+4+''x'', with ''n'' = 2 being the most commonly stud ...
and the thallium based or
TBCCO Thallium barium calcium copper oxide, or TBCCO (pronounced "tibco"), is a family of high-temperature superconductors having the generalized chemical formula Tl''m'' Ba2 Ca''n''−1 Cu''n'' O2''n''+''m''+2. Tl2Ba2Ca2Cu3O10 (TBCCO-2223) was disc ...
materialshad been discovered. Both of these have superconducting transitions above . So in the next March APS meeting at New Orleans a special evening session "Woodstock of Physics-II" was hastily organized to highlight the synthesis and properties of these new, first-ever 'triple digit superconductors'. The format of the session was same as in New York. Some of the panelists were repeats from the original "Woodstock" session. Additional researchers including Allen M. Hermann (at that time
University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...
), the co-discoverer of the thallium system, and Laura H. Greene (then with
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) were panelists. The 1988 session was chaired by
Timir Datta Timir Datta is an Indian-American physicist specializing in high transition temperature superconductors and a professor of physics in the department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia, South Carolina. Earl ...
from the University of South Carolina. On March 5, 2007, many of the original participants reconvened in
Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
to recognize and review the session on its 20-year anniversary; the "reunion" was again chaired by Maple.


Notes


References

* * * *{{cite book , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=obLvAAAAMAAJ , title = Copper oxide superconductors, isbn = 9780471623427, last1 = Poole, first1 = Charles P., last2 = Datta, first2 = Timir, last3 = Farach, first3 = Horacio A., year = 1988


External links


Video recordings
(published in 2016 by the American Physical Society, announcement
Experience the 1987 "Woodstock of Physics" Online
Superconductivity 1987 in science History of physics