Anyone know who these two people are?

[Locrian]

In Laughlin's book A Different Universe he writes:

Back in the 1970's two highly respected theoretical physicists (who will remain unnamed) recorded the contemporary prejudices of their discipline by writing a paper "proving" that superconductivity could never occur at temperatures higher than 30 degrees Kelvin.

Anyone know who these two are? My library searches are all clipped as I move between work and grad school. Given Laughlin's style, I would almost think this a joke and that one of the two is actually him.

Any idea?

 

[ZapperZ]

I must say I draw a blank with this one. My first instinct was to guess Dave Pines and Bob Schreifer. But I have nothing to back it up.

Zz.

 

[Pythagorean]

Yeah, of all the research I've done on this post, I find "scientists believed..." (in reference to the max temp) but no names.

I'll look into this more when I'm in the research library monday.

 

[Locrian]

Thanks for looking for me. I've still not found much. Here is one article I bumped into following a link you gave, zapperz:

McMillan. "Transition Temperature of Strong-Coupled Superconductors." Phys. Rev. 167, 331 (1968).

The superconducting transition temperature is calculated as a function of the electron-phonon and electron-electron coupling constants within the framework of the strong-coupling theory. Using this theoretical result, we find empirical values of the coupling constants and the "band-structure" density of states for a number of metals and alloys. It is noted that the electron-phonon coupling constant depends primarily on the phonon frequencies rather than on the electronic properties of the metal. Finally, using these results, one can predict a maximum superconducting transition temperature.

But I can't actually pull it up because no library access :(

You know, I gave my notice at my employer something like two and a half months ahead of time. I like to think it was a polite thing to do, but you can bet I'll never do it again. It's taking AGES to get out of here...

 

[ZapperZ]

Humm... I never thought of McMillan. But now that you mentioned it, I can certainly see why he would be a candidate. The McMillan-Rowel model is widely used, especially in tunneling spectroscopy, to extract the phonon structure out of the tunneling data of conventional superconductors.

Y'know something, why can't someone just write to Laughlin and ask? He might just answer! :)

Zz.

 

[nbo10]

From what I've heard Anderson might be the type to write something like that.

 

[Locrian]

Email sent to his Stanford email addy*. However, the only email I can send from right now is my yahoo mail, so I'm not certain he'll even ever get it. I'll let you know if I get a response.

*Is he back at stanford? I know he left Korea, but that's last I heard...

 

[ZapperZ]

He should be at Stanford, or at the very least, able to get any mail sent to him to Stanford.

If you don't hear anything from him, let me know. Maybe if I write from my argonne account, he might give it some attention.

Zz.

 

[Locrian]

Phil Anderson and Marvin Cohen! I'll find the particular paper and post a reference to it soon.

The source of this information shall just remain a great mystery as all evidence of the transaction has been dutifully burned as requested...

 

[nbo10]

Yay, I got one of them.

 

[Pythagorean]

I totally forgot to look this up while I was at the library. It's only me and the librarian there today, so I might be occupied, but I'll look into those two authors if I get the chance

 

[Pythagorean]

http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=TRD&recid=A7222553AH"

This seems to be around the right time with the relevant authors. Their citation names are "ML Cohen" and "PW Anderson"

Superconductivity in d- and f- band metals; Proceedings of the Conference, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y ; United States; 29-30 Oct. 1971. pp. 17-27. 1972

it appears that not a library in Alaska owns it, so I can't pull it to be sure. There's holdings all over the state though, CA, TX, and NY especially.

 

[Gokul43201]

Pyth, (JFYI) the names Marvin Cohen and Phil Anderson are well-known in the Condensed Matter community. Anderson is possibly among the top 3 or 4 of the most cited authors in all of physics. And Cohen just seems to never slow down...though he must be a million years old by now, at least!

 

[Pythagorean]

Pyth, (JFYI) the names Marvin Cohen and Phil Anderson are well-known in the Condensed Matter community. Anderson is possibly among the top 3 or 4 of the most cited authors in all of physics. And Cohen just seems to never slow down...though he must be a million years old by now, at least!

While I was trying to pin the before-mentioned mistake on them, I couldn't find it, beceause it was swamped with a whole bunch of more recent stuff they've done.

I wasn't aware that anderson was so well established, though.

Our university's part of the 'plasma' and 'geophysica' communities, I wish we had more condensate influence here.