The History of Cool a Look Back at Pioneering Studies of Quantum Effects at Low Temperatures
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books and arts The history of cool A look back at pioneering studies of quantum effects at low temperatures. Cold Wars: A History of Superconductivity by Jean Matricon & Georges Waysand Rutgers University Press: 2003. 304 pp. $65 Philip W. Anderson This book, translated from the French, is a history of the field of cryogenics and of the two specifically quantum forms of matter in bulk — superconductivity and superfluidity (although only the first is mentioned in the subtitle). The authors clearly express their enthusiasm (which I share) for the field and its history: the fascination and mystery that it held for the icons of the quantum revolu- tion, from Albert Einstein through Werner ARCHIVES VISUAL EMILIO SEGRE ONNES LAB./AIP KAMERLINGH Heisenberg to Richard Feynman; the slow and uneven advance of science as it was impeded by personality conflicts, the sav- agery of the Stalinist regime, and the politics of the real Cold War; the clashes of conflict- Super stars? Researchers at Heike Kamerlingh Onnes’ lab in Leiden discovered superconductivity. ing ways of doing research in disparate fields; and even, most recently, a case of the died too early to catch the breakthroughs in University of California, Berkeley, a labora- deliberate manufacture of scientific results high-temperature superconductivity made tory that the authors condemn to ‘also-ran’ on an unprecedented scale. There is a lot of by his followers and students. status in a parenthetical note.) And the rich material here that has been, on the Having said all that,throughout the book authors ignore Matthias’ continuous con- whole, neglected. I kept encountering historical blunders and nection to Bell Labs from before he began This history has more than its share of misapprehensions that left me wondering studying superconductivity. fascinating,larger-than-life figures.It begins how sound the rest of it was. For instance, in The book also provides a false impression with the Dutch entrepreneur Heike Kamer- the space of two pages there are three dubi- of the discovery of the Josephson effect. lingh Onnes, who discovered superconduc- ous historical judgements. To begin with, Brian Josephson’s paper predicting tunnel- tivity. In order to liquefy helium, he created “The history of physics was indelibly marked ling supercurrents was not ten years after in Leiden the Cryogenic Laboratory, the first by WWII,primarily because of the ...Bomb,” BCS theory — a fact that is given some sig- industrial-scale lab for pure scientificresearch write the authors, but more physicists nificance — but five. He was also unable to and the true precursor of today’s CERN, worked on radar than on the bomb, and put his own predictions into experimental Fermilab and Kamiokande. much more technology resulted from it.“Los practice, and had a public argument as to Then there were the Russians: Pyotr Alamos made no contribution to low-tem- their validity with Bardeen in the summer of Kapitsa, Ernest Rutherford’s favourite, who perature physics,”the book says,but research 1962; this was shortly settled by experiments was kidnapped by Stalin from Cambridge, on helium-3 originated at Los Alamos, and done by John Rowell and me at Bell Labs. UK,to carry on his helium research in Russia; Matthias’ laboratory there played an impor- But Josephson makes a late arrival (in Lev Shubnikov, who founded the great tant role later. And the authors declare that, chapter 18 of 22) in Cold Wars,which focuses Kharkov lab but was murdered by Stalin in in contrast to the experimentalists, “it was mainly on the period before and immediately 1938, some 15 years before his wonderful essentially the great pre-war figures who after the Second World War. It is almost experiments demonstrating ‘type II’ super- continued to hold center stage among the worth reading the book just for the distress- conductivity in alloys — the phase that makes theorists.”But the immediate post-war gen- ing story of London, whose books laid out possible high-field magnets such as those eration of theorists was arguably as strong the problems that the post-war generations used in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and as numerous as any in history:Feynman, were to solve but who died just before the — were understood; and the brilliant figure Tsung-Dao Lee, Chen Ning Yang, Julian solutions were to become clear. There is also of Lev Landau,Russia’s greatest theorist. Schwinger, Murray Gell-Mann and, among an excellent view of the prickly personality We also meet Fritz London, the under- the condensed-matter types, David Pines, of Landau and of the terrible dangers that recognized genius who was denied recogni- Philippe Nozieres and Walter Kohn. threatened him, Kapitsa and Shubnikov as tion for his great contribution to superfluidity There are also errors in personal details they laboured well in advance of their West- — the realization that it was a Bose–Einstein that in many cases subtly alter the emphases ern colleagues from 1935 to 1955. condensate — by Landau. There is John in the story. Bardeen was not a “student of In describing the controversies about the Bardeen,who,with Leon Cooper and Robert Slater”, he was a junior fellow at Harvard, theory of liquid helium’s superfluid phase, Schrieffer, proposed the BCS theory of and no other source has him seriously influ- the authors include the contributions of superconductivity, but only after first win- enced by John Slater. Ted Geballe was not an Feynman but not the penetrating insights ning a Nobel prize for the transistor. And “early student” of Matthias; rather, Geballe from the early 1950s of Lars Onsager, which finally we come across the charismatic Bernd was his department head and mentor at in my opinion are of equal status. The Matthias, the ‘alchemist’ guru of what the Bell Labs, and the relationship was two-way. story of Bardeen’s “relentless pursuit” of the authors call the “age of materials”.Matthias (Geballe was, incidentally, trained at the solution to superconductivity is well told, NATURE | VOL 426 | 6 NOVEMBER 2003 | www.nature.com/nature © 2003 Nature Publishing Group 17 books and arts as is the description of the nature of the BCS ally, a lot. Far too often the history of science on population cycles may find that it does theory (with a debt here to Victor Weisskopf, confines itself to bare facts — when it pays not cover the literature as fully as they might whose explanation is quoted). attention to them at all. I like in a book with ambitions of providing The story thereafter becomes sketchy Philip W. Anderson is in the Department of a synthesis of the field. I preferred the indeed,and misses many vital points.I might Physics, Princeton University, Princeton, second part of the book, which covers both suggest that the authors’ relative unfamili- New Jersey 08544-0708, USA. phenomenological (time series-based) and arity with the anglophone world, and their mechanistic modelling — the latter more weakness in theory, begin here to warp the fully than the former. coverage. There is emphasis on Pierre-Gilles The section on case examples is good de Gennes’group in France,with its remark- for the systems that Turchin has worked on able collective ethos and a significant num- The rise and fall himself, but is rather shallow for some of the ber of detailed applications of the BCS ideas other systems described, a good exception to its credit, but does this work stand out of populations being the chapter on grouse.However,I think so much relative to many things that at the Complex Population Dynamics: A that this book contributes profoundly to time seemed more important? And I cannot Theoretical/Empirical Synthesis the literature, in particular with its emphasis let pass the authors’ failure to note that by Peter Turchin on integrating statistical analysis, theoretical although Alex Müller’s great discovery of Princeton University Press: 2003. 456 pp. modelling and experiments, rather than high-temperature superconductivity in the $75, £52 (hbk); $29.95, £19.95 (pbk) relying solely on experimental work. I fully cuprates was unquestionably motivated by Nils Chr. Stenseth agree with Turchin’s conclusion that eco- bipolaron theory (not an original concept logical investigations of population cycles of Benoy Chakraverty, by the way), that People have been fascinated and puzzled for and similar phenomena should start with theory is nonetheless generally thought to centuries by the profound variations from statistical data analysis, aimed at describing be wrong. This is far from the first time since one year to the next in the abundance of the patterns to be explained, and end with Christopher Columbus that a wrong concept lemmings and populations of hares and experimental work to discriminate between motivated a great discovery. lynxes. The archbishop of Uppsala, for alternative mechanistic explanations. In this In the discussion of the state of theory in example, wrote about the phenomenon as respect the book may have a huge impact this field, my words in a 2001 article for a long ago as the fifteenth century. And on the field, not necessarily because every- Nobel symposium are quoted out of context, hunters and other rural people such as the body agrees with Turchin’s conclusions, but misreading or misunderstanding the mes- Sami of northern Scandinavia have their because he provides examples of what a sage that the article was meant to convey, own theories to explain the burgeoning research programme ought to look like. namely, that the source of high-temperature populations of lemmings, for instance, in Turchin’s book covers many of the same superconductivity is not a mystery, and that some years. But it was the Oxford zoologist elements as Population Cycles (Oxford Uni- theory has not been pointless and futile.