Magnet Academy: Leon Cooper

Leon Cooper shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Bardeen and Robert Schrieffer, with whom he developed the first widely accepted theory of superconductivity. Termed the BCS theory, it is heavily based on a phenomenon known as Cooper pairing. According to the theory, the electrons in a superconducting material form associated pairs that together act as a single system. Unless the movement of all pairs is halted simultaneously, the current flowing through a superconductor meets no resistance, and will continue ad infinitum.