lecture goals

• Learn the definitions and some examples of temperature, phase transition, and critical temperature.
• Start our study of condensed matter, sometimes called solid state, physics.
• Learn about the quantum property spin.
• Learn the definitions of and restrictions on fermions and bosons.
• Study, then see up close, the phenomenon of superconductivity, with many properties and explanations:
  • infinite conductivity (zero electrical resistance if you don't like the word infinity) and exclusion of magnetic fields, called the Meissner (1933, no Nobel) Effect
  • the Bardeen/Cooper/Schrieffer (Nobel 1972) theory of low temperature superconductors, with Cooper pairs and an energy gap
  • the new phenomenon of high temperature superconductivity (Bednorz and Mueller, Nobel 1987) and how we might exploit it for transport of electrical power without energy loss, and for levitated, friction-free trains