This book is primarily about the methodological questions involved
in attempts to understand two of the most peculiar phenomena in
physics, both occurring at the lowest of temperatures.
Superconductivity (the disappearance of electrical resistance) and
superfluidity (the total absence of viscosity in liquid helium) are
not merely peculiar in their own right. Being the only macroscopic
quantum phenomena they also manifest a sudden and dramatic change
even in those properties which have been amply used within the
classical framework and which were thought to be fully understood
after the advent of quantum theory. A few years ago we set
ourselves the task of carrying out a methodological study of the
"most peculiar" phenomena in physics and trying to understand the
process by which an observed (rather than predicted) new phenomenon
gets "translated" into a physical problem. We thought the best way
of deciding which phenomena to choose was to rely on our intuitive
notion about the "degrees of peculiarity" developed, no doubt,
during the past ten years of active research in theoretical atomic
and elementary particle physics. While the merits of the different
candidates were compared, we were amazed to realize that neither
the phenomena of the very small nor those of the very large could
compete with the phenomena of the very cold. These were truly
remarkable phenomena if for no other reason than for the
difficulties encountered in merely describing them.
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