Why We Don't Have a Room-Temperature Superconductor—Yet: 1991 MRS Fall Von Hippel Award Address

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 70-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
T.H. Geballe
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
Room Temperature ◽  
American Chemical Society ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Chemical Society ◽  
Research Society ◽  
American Physical Society ◽  
Materials Research ◽  
Disposable Diapers ◽  
American Physical

I would like to raise a question of interest to many of us here today: “Why have we not been able to find a room-temperature superconductor?” I have a scenario for why not that can be illustrated by projecting ahead 98 years. It is 2089, the tercentenary of the French Revolution. The revolt against science that started building up in the last decade of the 20th century has reached a crescendo and a revolutionary tribunal has erected a huge guillotine. Following in the tradition of Lavoisier's trial and execution, the presidents of the Materials Research Society, the American Chemical Society, and the American Physical Society have been found to be enemies of the people and have been sentenced to be guillotined. The president of the Materials Research Society steps up. In his final words, he says: “I have no regrets. We've supplied you with the pole vaults which have made possible a new world's record above 30 feet, we've given you automobile bumpers that prevent damage in crashes at 60 miles per hour, and we've given you tennis rackets that are big enough to allow you to cover from center court to the alley without having to take a step.” With that, he bravely puts his head on the block. Down crashes the knife but inexplicably it stops just before it reaches his neck. According to the rules he steps down a free man. Then the American Chemical Society president steps up and says: “I don't have any regrets either. We have given you body centered cubic diamond that makes it possible to build indestructible houses, we have given you disposable diapers that are biodegradable in 30 seconds, and we've reseeded the stratosphere with ozone. We have done our job.” She courageously puts her head on the block, and the guillotine comes down. Again it stops short and she walks away, a free woman. Then the president of the American Physical Society says: “I don't have any regrets either. We've circled the equator with our newest SSC and have given you the Higgs boson, we've given you light that you can squeeze until it hurts, and we've discovered over 100 theoretical models which should lead to room-temperature superconductors. We haven't given you any real ones because there aren't any—we've tested all the possibilities. But, by the way, while we've been standing here, I've done a back-of-the-envelope calculation and I've found out wha's wrong with this guillotine. If you give me a screwdriver I can fix it.”

Material Matters

MRS Bulletin ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Sabrina J. Diol
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Mail ◽  
American Chemical Society ◽  
Chemical Society ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Research Society ◽  
Professional Societies ◽  
Materials Research ◽  
Employment Search ◽  
Job Postings ◽  
American Physical

Through my interdisciplinary graduate work, I have attended conferences organized by various professional societies such as the Materials Research Society (MRS), American Physical Society (APS), Optical Society of America (OSA), and American Chemical Society (ACS). I have also participated in some of their employment workshops and have searched their websites for employment resources. This article elaborates on information and services that professional societies and organizations can provide to ease employment search for their student membership.Career Workshops. These workshops provide excellent guidance, especially for students initiating their employment search. Obviously, the best ones are conducted by people who recruit PhD graduates. I attended an employment workshop organized by the American Institute of Physics (AIP) during the 1995 MRS Fall Meeting. An extremely dynamic hightechnology industrial recruiter conducted the workshop. The mock interviews, mininetworking groups, and resume and cover letter critique involved audience participation and were highly effective. I strongly recommend such a workshop. On the other hand, I have also been frustrated with workshops in which speakers did not have a technical PhD background since I often found their suggestions unsuitable.Employment Database. A website with current job postings mainly for PhD graduates is extremely useful. The National Academy of Science (http://www2.nas.edu) is among the few sources for this. The critical issue in this case is to have a well-maintained site with frequent updates and a search engine. Another alternative, which we have been using at the University of Rochester, is to circulate job postings via electronic mail. Again, timeliness is the key issue.

scholarly journals Physico-chemical properties of Selenium-Tellurium alloys across the scales

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke D Geoffrion ◽  
Gregory Guisbiers
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Research Society ◽  
American Physical Society ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
Physico Chemical ◽  
Materials Research ◽  
American Physical

Selenium and tellurium are both energy critical elements as defined by the American Physical Society and the Materials Research Society. When mixed together, both elements form an alloy. The size-...

Weed Science in the 1990s: Will It be Forward or in Reverse?

1990 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Homer M. Lebaron
Keyword(s):  
Working Group ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Resistance Management ◽  
Basic Research ◽  
American Chemical Society ◽  
Chemical Society ◽  
Research Society ◽  
Plant Management ◽  
Weed Science ◽  
Scientific Publications

Dr. Homer M. LeBaron is Senior Research Fellow in the New Technology and Basic Research Department of CIBA-GEIGY Corporation, where He has the responsibility for coordinating and directing outside basic research on all of CIBA-GEIGY agricultural products. He has been employed in various R&D positions with Geigy and CIBA-GEIGY for 27 years. From 1960 to 1964, Dr. LeBaron was employed as a plant physiologist at the Virginia Tech Experiment Station in Norfolk, Virginia, mainly researching weed problems in vegetables and fruit crops.LeBaron was born May 13, 1926 in Southern Alberta, Canada, the third in a family of 10 children, and grew up on a diversified irrigation farm. He obtained his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Utah State University in 1955 and 1957. He received his Ph.D. degree from Cornell in 1960.LeBaron, in addition to WSSA, is a member of the American Society of Agronomy, American Chemical Society, Entomological Society of America, American Phytopathological Society, CAST, Sigma Xi, Aquatic Plant Management Society, European Weed Research Society, and all of the regional weed science societies.He has held numerous positions in several of these and other scientific societies. Homer served as president of NEWSS in 1969–70 and as president of the SWSS in 1986–87. He served on several WSSA committees, including the Executive Board of Directors. In 1978, Dr. LeBaron was elected a Fellow in the WSSA, and received the Distinguished Service Award in the SWSS in 1984.He is author of over 70 scientific publications, and has been editor and author of five books on herbicide and pesticide resistance and biotechnology. He is currently serving on the parent Herbicide Resistance Action Committee (HRAC) under GIFAP, as well as on the ALS/AHAS Inhibitors Resistance Working Group and as Chairman of the Triazine Resistance Working Group. He is on the Planning Committee and Co-Chair of the Weed Resistance Management Working Group within the International Organization for Pest Resistance Management (IOPRM). In addition to his busy professional schedule, Dr. LeBaron has always been involved in church and community affairs. He has 7 children and 20 grandchildren.

An Accelerated Aging Test at Room Temperature

1939 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-286
Author(s):  
B. Marzetti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Room Temperature ◽  
Accelerated Aging ◽  
American Chemical Society ◽  
Chemical Society ◽  
Oven Test ◽  
Accelerated Aging Test ◽  
Aging Test ◽  
Different Temperatures ◽  
Natural Life

Abstract Accelerated aging in an oven, heated to a more or less elevated temperature, is one of the most valuable tests at the disposal of the rubber technologist for examining the behavior of different compounds in practical use. Geer in 1916 described a now well-established oven test at 160° F., he and Evans giving more details in 1921. In this latter paper they stated in particular that with proper use of their test, one day in the oven could be taken as equal to six months of natural life. Other attempts to foretell more exactly the natural life of rubber from accelerated aging data have proved useless. The figures obtained for life at different temperatures are not always in the same ratio, so that calculation of the corresponding times at room temperature depends on the temperature used in the heat test. This has been shown in experimental work of many authors, particularly Williams and Neal, Milligan and Shaw, Bierer and Davis, and Somerville and Russell. The matter has been thoroughly discussed in a “Symposium on Aging” presented before the New York Rubber Group of the American Chemical Society in 1929.

The Problem of a Lifetime

2021 ◽  
pp. 316-342
Author(s):  
Andrew Zangwill
Keyword(s):  
High Temperature ◽  
Room Temperature ◽  
Cuprate Superconductors ◽  
Valence Bond ◽  
Mott Insulator ◽  
American Physical Society ◽  
Bcs Theory ◽  
Limited Success ◽  
Doped Mott Insulator ◽  
American Physical

Anderson is the only theorist who answers questions at a news conference at the 1987 March Meeting of the American Physical Society (the “Woodstock of Physics”) where most physicists learned details about the newly discovered high-temperature cuprate superconductors, which lose all resistance at temperatures not very far below room temperature. He had just proposed a radical non-BCS theory which attributed superconductivity in these materials to a “resonating valence bond” description of a doped Mott insulator using a model first proposed by John Hubbard. He spent the next twenty years trying to convince his colleagues of the correctness of this theory, with only limited success.

Polysaccharide Structures in the Outer Mucilage of Arabidopsis Seeds Visualized by AFM

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
MAK Williams ◽  
V Cornuault ◽  
AH Irani ◽  
VV Symonds ◽  
J Malmström ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Average Length ◽  
American Chemical Society ◽  
Md Simulations ◽  
Chemical Society ◽  
Side Chains ◽  
Rhamnogalacturonan I ◽  
Afm Imaging ◽  
Minor Population ◽  
The Stability ◽  
A Minor

© 2020 American Chemical Society. Evidence is presented that the polysaccharide rhamnogalacturonan I (RGI) can be biosynthesized in remarkably organized branched configurations and surprisingly long versions and can self-assemble into a plethora of structures. AFM imaging has been applied to study the outer mucilage obtained from wild-type (WT) and mutant (bxl1-3 and cesa5-1) Arabidopsis thaliana seeds. For WT mucilage, ordered, multichain structures of the polysaccharide RGI were observed, with a helical twist visible in favorable circumstances. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations demonstrated the stability of several possible multichain complexes and the possibility of twisted fibril formation. For bxl1-3 seeds, the imaged polymers clearly showed the presence of side chains. These were surprisingly regular and well organized with an average length of ∼100 nm and a spacing of ∼50 nm. The heights of the side chains imaged were suggestive of single polysaccharide chains, while the backbone was on average 4 times this height and showed regular height variations along its length consistent with models of multichain fibrils examined in MD. Finally, in mucilage extracts from cesa5-1 seeds, a minor population of chains in excess of 30 μm long was observed.

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