After the breakthrough

About this book

The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity was hailed as a major scientific breakthrough, inducing an unprecedented wave of excitement and expectation among the scientific community and in the international press. This book sets this research breakthrough in context, and reconstructs the history of the discovery. The authors analyze the emergence of this new research field and the way its development was shaped by scientists and science policy makers. They also examine the various institutional and national settings in which the research was undertaken as well as considering the scientific backgrounds and motivations of researchers who entered the field following the original discovery. The industrial connection and the general belief in promises about potential future applications were important elements in strategies devised to obtain funding. A remarkable factor in this process was the role played by the media. The sustained attention that followed the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity resulted in it being seen as the symbol of a new technological frontier. This remarkable story and the developments that followed provide fascinating insight into the current changes the transform the system of science under the impact of international social and economic pressures. This book will be of interest to scientists generally, to science policy-makers, to those interested in the sociology of science and technology, to students working on the public understanding of science, and the general readers interested in science and scientific development.