Michael Faraday (in 1843) was surprised to find the resistance of silver sulfide went down when the temperature went up; Hans Meissner (in 1929) was surprised to find that copper sulfide suddenly became a much better conductor than metallic copper at very low temperature (2 K); people through the ages (from 3000 BC to a very young Albert Einstein) have puzzled over why the compass does what it does. We now have a fairly fundamental understanding of why these things happen. Solid‐state physics has been able to show how real materials governed by the laws of quantum mechanics can behave in such a variety of ways. In doing so, it has enabled us to make useful predictions and to synthesize materials with unprecedented properties and it has enabled us to use some materials as a basis of new technologies, making possible new styles of life.
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November 1981
November 01 1981
This golden age of solid‐state physics
We study condensed‐matter states, response to stimuli, phase transitions, and microscopic interactions
Physics Today 34 (11), 132–143 (1981);