Low temperature physics

JAN 01, 1965

The Ninth International Conference on Low‐Temperature Physics, reported here by M. Yaqub of Ohio State University, was sponsored by the Commission on Very Low Temperatures of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and was held in Columbus, Ohio, from August 31 to September 4, 1964. The Ohio State University and Battelle Memorial Institute were the official hosts, and they were assisted financially by the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. Of the 850 delegates who attended the conference, 187 came from foreign countries (including five from the USSR, marking the first time a Soviet delegation was able to attend a low‐temperature conference held in the United States).

DOI: 10.1063/1.3047155

M. Yaqub

In spite of the increasing popularity of lowtemperature conferences in recent years, some of the pundits argue that the subject of low temperatures has ceased to be a coherent whole, and that low‐temperature conferences should be abandoned. It is true that we have progressed far beyond the pioneering days when every experiment revealed a new phenomenon and every discovery offered a new challenge. With the disappearance of liquid helium and superconductivity from the list of unsolved problems, we are no longer worried by any major mysteries. However, the theories of Landau and Feynman and Bardeen, Cooper, and Schrieffer have not only explained existing facts but have raised new problems, and it is clear that there are enough interesting and unresolved fundamental questions to keep most of us happily occupied for many years to come, and although at present it appears unlikely, there may be further surprises around the corner.