Richard Feynman and the History of Superconductivity

We have been asked to speak to you this morning about the history of superconductivity. We will do that, of course. We always do whatever Harvey Newman asks us to do. However, we also have another objective in mind. Because this conference is the occasion of the formal dedication of the Richard P. Feynman Lecture Hall at the Ettore Majorana Centre, we would like to tell you a bit of the story of Feynman's epic battle with superconductivity. As it turned out, Feynman was the loser in that struggle, and so the story may tell us more about Richard Feynman than it does about superconductivity. We hope that will not make it any less interesting.