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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2003

  The Nobel Prize in Physics 2003
       
 
Ginzburg
Vitaly L. Ginzburg
 P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia
 

The importance of order

Together with his colleague Lev Landau, Vitaly Ginzburg developed a phenomenological theory of superconductivity in the late 1940s. This theory proposes that those electrons that contribute to superconduction form a superfluid. The superconductor is described by a complex function called the order parameter, and indicates the fraction of electrons that has condensed into a superfluid.

Order parameter
 

The Ginzburg-Landau order parameter
is the solution of an equation similar to
the quantum-mechanical wave equation.
 

Contents:
| Introduction | Swirling superfluids | Two types of superconductors & It takes two
| The importance of order | Vortices give guidance | A fluid with directions | Theories put to work | Timeline | Further reading | Credits |
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