Bednorz and Müller Win Nobel Prize for New Superconducting Materials

Georg Bednorz and Alex Müller (IBM Zurich Research Laboratory at Rüschlikon, Switzerland) share this year's Nobel Prize in Physics for “their discovery of new superconducting materials.” The announcement of the prize, worth $340 000 this year, caused little surprise among physicists. Few doubted that the discovery by Bednorz and Müller merited the Nobel Prize; speculations on what year the prize would be awarded have abounded since last January.