BCS theory Ansatz Becoming common Commentary

John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, John Robert Schrieffer physics

BCS theory

• John Bardeen collaborated with Leon Cooper
• and John Robert Schrieffer to explain superconductivity
• using Cooper’s concept of Cooper pairs.
• The Pauli exclusion principle creates a Fermi surface
• that warps in the presence of an electron to attract a second electron,
• overcoming their Coulomb repulsion.
• The electron pairs create a Fermionic condensate
• and vibrates in a shared quantum state
• to become superfluidic, superconductive, and diamagnetic.

Ansatz

• It was an educated guess
• confirmed by later experiments.
• It was only a theory
• that predicted testable implications.
• It was an approximation
• and further work was needed.

Becoming common

• Theoretical physics,
• a math problem, a concept
• of how things work together
• becomes less theoretical
• when it changes lives
• and makes miracles common.