YOU’VE got to talk fast to make it in the high-pressured world of
superconductors. This week 79 physicists had just two minutes each to describe
their latest work at a hastily arranged session of the American Physical
Society’s meeting in Seattle. The trigger was the discovery this year of a new
superconducting material, magnesium diboride, that appears to work like ordinary
metal superconductors but at higher temperatures.
Two minutes is just enough time to claim a piece of the action, says George
Crabtree of Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. “It’s a way to advertise
what you have,” he says.
Only…
