Bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide Updated 2025-07-16
Discovered in 1988, the first high-temperature superconductor which did not contain a rare-earth element.
Nova episode Created 2024-11-30 Updated 2025-07-16
Good ones:
- Moving Still (1980); development of film technology
- Race for the Superconductor (1988): recounts the feeding frenzy for high-temperature superconductivity after the Swiss found a ceramic superconductor.
- The Proof (1997): Fermat's last theorem
- Absolute Zero: The Conquest of Cold (2008): cryogenics
Unsolved physics problem Updated 2025-07-16
The most important ones are:
- theory of everything. We are certain that our base equations are wrong, but we don't know how to fix them :-)
- full explanation of high-temperature superconductivity. Superconductivity already has a gazillion applications, and doing it in higher temperatures would add a gazillion more, and maybe this theoretical explanation would help us find new high temperature superconducting materials more effectively
- fractional quantum Hall effect 5/2
Other super important ones:
- neutrino mass measurement and explanation