How did these discoveries occur? The original discovery, in 1911 was made by the Dutch physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes. Kamerlingh Onnes was an experimental physicist, one who worked in a research laboratory, often inventing and building the equipment he needed to carry out his experiments, and then using insight , knowledge, and imagination to interpret the results. many times the results had no immediate practical applications. Onnes had built new kinds of refrigerators that could reach previously unexplored temperatures. He then studied the properties of gases, liquids, and solids at these new temperatures.
He anticipated that mercury would become a better electrical conductor when the temperatures was lowered. What totally surprised him was that all resistance disappeared when mercury reached 4 degree above absolute zero!

For over forty years after 1911 no one had developed a complete explanation of how materials could conduct electricity without loss. that is there is no theory of superconductivity. In 1957, three Americans theoretical physicists, John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and Robert Schrieffer, presented a theory called the BSC theory, that explained how superconductors work. Theoretical physicists use mathematics and, especially today, computers to conduct a framework of explanations called a theory that explains experimental data and predicts new results. Theoreticians also need insight, imagination, and creativity. The work of theoreticians in superconductivity is not finished, because no theory can yet explain how the new superconducting materials work.

We still have much to learn about the interactions of matter and energy. Sometimes experimental results come before the theoretical explanations. In other cases, a theory predicts the results of an experiment that has not yet been done. Often physics has important applications to other sciences. superconducting magnets are an important part of devices used by chemists to learn the structure of molecules, by biologist to trace molecules through cells, and by physicians to find brain tumors.

Science and technology constantly interact. Often new equipment, such as refrigerators Kamerlingh Onnes built, produce further scientific results. Other times science results in new products. For example, engineers have built giant magnets and small, efficient motors and generators using superconductors. the applications of science affect the lives of everyone more and more each year. For this reason, all of us need an understanding of physics, as well as the other sciences, to make informed decisions about problems involving our rapidly changing society.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of physics is that results can be described by a small number of relationships, or laws. These laws often can be expressed using mathematics, which has been called the language of physics.