Coupled superconductors and beyond
This paper describes the events leading to the discovery of coupled superconductors, the author’s move in the 1970s to a perspective where mind plays a role comparable to matter, and the remarkable hostility sometimes encountered by those who venture into unconventional areas.
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irk-123456789-1171152017-05-21T03:03:14Z Coupled superconductors and beyond Josephson, Brian D. Квантовые когерентные эффекты в сверхпроводниках и новые материалы This paper describes the events leading to the discovery of coupled superconductors, the author’s move in the 1970s to a perspective where mind plays a role comparable to matter, and the remarkable hostility sometimes encountered by those who venture into unconventional areas. 2012 Article Coupled superconductors and beyond / Brian D. Josephson // Физика низких температур. — 2012. — Т. 38, № 4. — С. 333-335. — Бібліогр.: 22 назв. — англ. 0132-6414 PACS: 74.50.+r http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/117115 en Физика низких температур Фізико-технічний інститут низьких температур ім. Б.І. Вєркіна НАН України |
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Квантовые когерентные эффекты в сверхпроводниках и новые материалы Квантовые когерентные эффекты в сверхпроводниках и новые материалы |
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Квантовые когерентные эффекты в сверхпроводниках и новые материалы Квантовые когерентные эффекты в сверхпроводниках и новые материалы Josephson, Brian D. Coupled superconductors and beyond Физика низких температур |
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This paper describes the events leading to the discovery of coupled superconductors, the author’s move in the
1970s to a perspective where mind plays a role comparable to matter, and the remarkable hostility sometimes
encountered by those who venture into unconventional areas. |
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Article |
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Josephson, Brian D. |
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Josephson, Brian D. |
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Josephson, Brian D. |
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Coupled superconductors and beyond |
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Coupled superconductors and beyond |
| title_full |
Coupled superconductors and beyond |
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Coupled superconductors and beyond |
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Coupled superconductors and beyond |
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coupled superconductors and beyond |
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Фізико-технічний інститут низьких температур ім. Б.І. Вєркіна НАН України |
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2012 |
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Квантовые когерентные эффекты в сверхпроводниках и новые материалы |
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http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/117115 |
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Coupled superconductors and beyond / Brian D. Josephson // Физика низких температур. — 2012. — Т. 38, № 4. — С. 333-335. — Бібліогр.: 22 назв. — англ. |
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Физика низких температур |
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AT josephsonbriand coupledsuperconductorsandbeyond |
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2025-07-08T11:40:26Z |
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2025-07-08T11:40:26Z |
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© Brian D. Josephson, 2012
Low Temperature Physics/Fizika Nizkikh Temperatur, 2012, v. 38, No. 4, pp. 333–335
Coupled superconductors and beyond
Brian D. Josephson
Cavendish Laboratory, J.J. Thomson Ave., Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/
Received December 19, 2011
This paper describes the events leading to the discovery of coupled superconductors, the author’s move in the
1970s to a perspective where mind plays a role comparable to matter, and the remarkable hostility sometimes
encountered by those who venture into unconventional areas.
PACS: 74.50.+r Tunneling phenomena; Josephson effects.
Keywords: discovery of coupled superconductors, mind and matter, ac supercurrents.
Learning about superconductivity
My official Ph.D. project was experimental, not theoreti-
cal [1], but having theoretical inclinations I was encouraged
by Professor Shoenberg and other members of the low tem-
perature group to study the theoretical aspects of supercon-
ductivity. I puzzled over the question ‘how do superconduc-
tors work?’. The idea that superconductors have a phase was
apparent in a number of treatments of superconductivity,
starting off with the phenomenological theory of Ginzburg
and Landau [2], later justified on the basis of a Green’s func-
tion treatment by Gor’kov [3]. It was apparent also in the
Bogoliubov treatment of superconductivity [4] and the An-
derson pseudospin approach [5] which displayed the degree
of freedom associated with the phase in graphic form. I rec-
ognised that the phase gradient, in accord with the Ginz-
burg–Landau equations, ‘told electrons which way to flow’,
and that this might happen even in equilibrium. And in the
case of a ring, the phase change round a ring would be quan-
tised, leading to the quantised flux observed at about that
time by Deaver and Fairbank and by Doll and Näbauer, and
implicit in the Ginzburg–Landau theory.
My interest in junctions stemmed from a question put
by my supervisor, Brian Pippard, who was sceptical of
Giaever’s theory for the current through a junction be-
tween superconductors [6]. Why, he wondered, did cohe-
rence factors not enter into the result as they do for many
other phenomena in superconductors? I could see that a
possible answer was that the coherence factors for a tun-
nelling quasiparticle would depend on the difference be-
tween the phases on the two sides of the junction, and if
these varied the coherence factors might average out to
unity. This however raised in my mind the possibility that
the phase might be something physical. Symmetry consid-
erations ruled out the possibility of the absolute phase be-
ing physical, but not the phase difference between two
superconducting regions that can exchange electrons. The
next development was Phil Anderson, who was on sabbati-
cal at the Cavendish at the time, showing me a calculation
published in Physical Review Letters [7] justifying Giae-
var’s result, but only in the case where one side was nor-
mal, not the more interesting case of two superconductors.
I learned later that Falicov had done the same calculation
that I did subsequently but was baffled by the extra terms,
so the authors decided not to include the two-super-
conductor case in the paper.
The paper of Cohen et al. had treated tunnelling by
simply adding to the Hamiltonian terms that transferred
electrons across the barrier. I applied their method to the
two-superconductor case and got the additional coherence
factor terms that I expected, which I thought might manif-
est as an oscillatory component to the tunnelling current.
There seemed to be something wrong, however, as the per-
turbation calculation produced additional terms that did not
vanish at zero applied voltage and implied a supercurrent. I
had in fact anticipated a supercurrent but of very small
magnitude since the probability of a pair current was ex-
pected to be very small compared with the normal current.
But my calculation was in fact correct, and the large super-
current subsequently explained in terms of coherence.
My prediction of tunnelling superconductors, including
predictions of ac supercurrents and the magnetic field de-
pendence of the critical current, was published in Physics
Letters [8]. It was nine months before the existence of
coupled superconductors, and their dependence on magnet-
ic fields, was confirmed by Anderson and Rowell [9]. Lat-
er, the anticipated ac supercurrents were observed indirect-
ly by Giaever [10] and later directly by Yanson et al. [11].
Brian D. Josephson
334 Low Temperature Physics/Fizika Nizkikh Temperatur, 2012, v. 38, No. 4
New interests: mental phenomena and mind–matter
unification
Since the 1970s I have been concerned chiefly with two
issues, the problem of the organisation of the mind [12],
and what I have named ‘Mind–Matter Unification’. The
latter stems from the intuition that the role of mind is not
fully addressed by conventional theories, and that new
physics is sometimes involved. Proposals of this general
nature have been made by a number of physicists in the
past: for example, Bohr [13] argued that the application of
quantum mechanics to life could be problematic, while
Wigner and others [14] suggest that consciousness needs to
be included in physics to get a fully comprehensive ac-
count of nature. These issues I have discussed myself, in
various publications [15,16]. A more recent paper [17]
develops the idea of Wheeler [18] that ‘acts of observer-
participancy’ are what determine the nature of reality. My
paper begins with the not unreasonable proposal that ob-
servers be viewed from the standpoint of biology rather
than physics. Earlier, in an excursion into the realm of the
arts, I collaborated with a musicologist to argue that musi-
cal aesthetics points towards specific musical patterns pos-
sessing a ‘generative capacity’ that cannot be understood
in conventional terms [19].
A general theme in all this is the idea that biology is ‘a
different game’. How precisely that game is played is an
issue for the future, and there are various directions that we
are exploring. My collaborator Fotini Pallikari has illu-
strated the situation we seem to be in with the cartoon
shown below. The diagram illustrates the fact that the scien-
tist is confronted with a ‘hail’ of data and candidate theo-
ries, and out of these has to try to select the theory that fits
the data best. Such a situation led us in the past from clas-
sical mechanics to quantum mechanics, and now appears to
be leading us to a picture where mind plays a key role.
Where progress and politics collide
My transition into believing that mind has to be taken
seriously as an entity in its own right proved also to be a
transition into an environment that was hostile where pre-
viously it had been very supportive. The scientific commu-
nity has its own belief systems that it is dangerous to chal-
lenge (consider the case of the winner of the most recent
Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Daniel Shechtman, who suffered
years of ridicule and hostility from colleagues and friends
because of his suggestion that crystals could have aperiod-
ic structures, which should not have been controversial).
Being a Nobel Laureate protects one from the worst pres-
sures, but not from curiosities such as this letter relating to
a conference to which I had previously been given an invi-
tation and even been asked how long I wished to speak:
“It has come to my attention that one of your principal
research interests is the paranormal ... in my view, it
would not be appropriate for someone with such research
interests to attend a scientific conference.”
Coupled superconductors and beyond
Low Temperature Physics/Fizika Nizkikh Temperatur, 2012, v. 38, No. 4 335
I learned from subsequent correspondence that it was
feared that my very presence at the meeting might damage
the career prospects of students who attended, even if I did
not touch on the paranormal in my talk. One is distinctly
reminded of Orwell’s concept of ‘thoughtcrime’!
More seriously, my interest in such matters seems to
have led to the harassment of students working with me,
even in regard to projects not related to the paranormal. A
student who had been offered funding by the laboratory,
and was very interested in doing a project examining paral-
lels between classical organisation such as flocking beha-
viour and quantum wholeness, was told that the funding
that had been offered would not be available for a project
under my direction. Again, a student who had done a suc-
cessful computer simulation of development based on the
hyperstructure model of Baas [20] was pressured by the
department into stopping work on that project on the
grounds of it ‘not being physics’, and had to start afresh on
another project. I had hoped that Osborne’s programming
skills would herald a transition to a firmer basis for my
speculative ideas on the organisation of the mind, but it
was not to be.
Studying developmental processes on the basis of a dif-
ferent kind of model, that of the neural network, is an ac-
cepted research topic for physicists, and one can only mar-
vel at the way the novelty of the picture used in Osborne’s
simulation provided sufficient grounds for blocking that
project. One wonders how much the advance of science in
general suffers from such small-minded thinking. All one
can say about this [21] is ‘it has always been thus’. Some
ideas are irrationally perceived as dangerous, and protec-
tive mechanisms, usually involving arguments that would
fall apart under close examination, are brought up to avoid
confronting the possibility that they may be of value.
My original assumption that scientists, being intelligent
people, would have the ability to view experimental evi-
dence and theoretical arguments objectively has been se-
verely challenged by my experiences over decades of
working in frontier areas of science (a very well known
scientist retreated rapidly into the distance, rather than
showing interest, when I told him we had an argument [22]
that could reconcile quantum mechanics and paranormal
phenomena). But, in the end, truth will prevail.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Judith Driscoll and Fotini Pallikari for
suggestions concerning the manuscript. A video uploaded
by Kelly Neill was the source of the section title “Where
progress and politics collide”.
1. B.D. Josephson, Magnetic Field Dependence of the Surface
Reactance of Superconducting Tin at 174 MHz, J. Phys. F4,
751 (1974).
2. V.L. Ginzburg and L.D. Landau, Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 20,
1064 (1950).
3. L.P. Gor’kov, Microscopic Derivation of the Ginzburg–
Landau Equations in the Theory of Superconductivity, Sov.
Phys. JETP 36, 364 (1959).
4. N.N. Bogoliubov, V.V. Tolmachov, and D.V. Širkov, A New
Method in the Theory of Superconductivity, Fortschritte
Phys., Nos. 11–12, 605 (1958).
5. P.W. Anderson, Random-Phase Approximation in the Theory
of Superconductivity, Phys. Rev. 112, 1900 (1958).
6. I. Giaever, Energy Gap in Superconductors Measured by
Electron Tunneling, Phys. Rev. Lett. 5, 147 (1960).
7. M.H. Cohen, L.M. Falicov, and J.C. Phillips, Superconduc-
tive Tunneling, Phys. Rev. Lett. 8, 316 (1962).
8. B.D. Josephson, Possible New Effects in Superconductive
Tunnelling, Phys. Lett. 1, 251 (1962).
9. P.W. Anderson and J.M. Rowell, Probable Observation of
the Josephson Superconducting Tunnel Effect, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 10, 230 (1963).
10. I. Giaever, Detection of the ac Josephson Effect, Phys. Rev.
Lett. 14, 904 (1965).
11. I.K. Yanson, M.V. Svistunov, and I.M. Dmitrenko, Sov.
Phys. JETP 48, 976 (1965).
12. B.D. Josephson, General Principles for Brain Design, in:
CASYS’05 — AIP Conference Proceedings, D.M. Dubois
(ed.), American Institute of Physics (2006), Vol. 839, p. 3.
Also at http://cogprints.org/4650/.
13. N. Bohr, Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, Wiley,
New York (1958).
14. E.P. Wigner, Remarks on the Mind-Body Question, in:
Symmetries and Reflections, Bloomington: Indiana University
Press (1967), p. 171.
15. B.D. Josephson, Limits to the Universality of Quantum
Mechanics, Found. Phys. 18, 1195 (1988). Also at
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/QMlimits.html).
16. B.D. Josephson, Can the Physicists’ Description of Reality
be Considered Complete? (video) (2006). From
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq4SKC9ze7Y.
17. B.D. Josephson, Biological Observer-Participation and
Wheeler’s ‘Law without Law’, in: Integral Biomathics:
Tracing the Road to Reality, Proceedings of iBioMath 2011,
P.L. Simeonov, L.S. Smith, and A.C. Ehresmann (eds.),
Paris and ACIB ’11, Stirling UK (2012), in press. Springer-
Verlag. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4860.
18. J.A. Wheeler, Law Without Law, in: Quantum Theory and
Measurement, J.A. Wheeler and W.H. Zurek (eds.) Princeton:
Princeton University Press (1983), p. 182. Also at http://what-
buddha-said.net/library/pdfs/wheeler_law_without_law.pdf.
19. B.D. Josephson and T. Carpenter, What Can Music Tell Us
about the Nature of the Mind? A Platonic Model (1994).
From
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/mm/articles/tucson.txt.
20. G. Osborne, The Cognitive Mechanisms Guiding Psychological
Development (1995). From http://cogprints.org/4888/.
21. B.D. Josephson, Pathological Disbelief (2004). From
www.lenr-canr.org/acrobat/JosephsonBpathologic.pdf.
22. B.D. Josephson and F. Pallikari-Viras, Biological
Utilisation of Quantum NonLocality (1991). From
http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/papers/bell.html.
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