How Josephson discovered his effect

NOV 01, 1970

About eight years ago a 22‐year‐old student showed his professor some calculations on quantum tunneling. Now that professor tells us

DOI: 10.1063/1.3021826

Philip W. Anderson

The discovery of what we have ever since called the “Josephson effect” took place while I was visiting Cambridge, England, for a sabbatical year in 1961–62. Recently, when I travelled to Kyoto to accept the London Prize on Brian Josephson’s behalf, I put together some reminiscences of that period, which may be more interesting than a mere recapitulation of the bare scientific facts. Lest I appear too central to this account, I should make it clear that at least two other people could have told a similar story from their own points of view. They are Brian Pippard, Josephson’s thesis advisor while the work was being done, and David Shoenberg, director at that time of the Mond Laboratory in which Josephson was a research student in experimental physics and where I served as nominal head of the solid‐state theory group.

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More about the authors

Philip W. Anderson, Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J..