One of my favorite things about being a condensed matter physicist is how broadly defined the subject is. There are lots of interesting phenomena begging for scientific attention, so it’s never boring. One of my favorite topics lies at the crossroads of magnetism and superconductivity.

Magnets have been with us for millennia, and we’ve known about superconductors for a century. Magnets are everywhere: inside refrigerators, computers, cellphones, audio speakers, cars, and compasses, which are what people used, together with a map, to get around before we all had GPS.

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