Changqing Jin

An ordinary wire heats up when current flows through it — some energy is wasted. A superconductor lacks this flaw: electricity flows through it without loss, like water through a perfectly smooth pipe. The trouble is that most superconductors require either very low temperatures or colossal pressures, like those found in the depths of planets.

At first glance, a city of blocks looks orderly, but its rhythm is set not by the streets themselves but by the houses that line them. In cuprates, layered copper oxides, a mysterious periodicity of eight unit cells (8a0) has long been observed, as if the streets were laid out with a spacing of 8.