Welcome to SUPERCONDUCTORS. My name is Joe Eck. I am the author of these web pages. I have been an electronics engineer since leaving college in 1970 and superconductors are a passion of mine. I study them and regularly experiment with esoteric concoctions as part of the search for new high-Tc compounds.
Among my accomplishments are the discovery of:
1. A general method for increasing superconductor transition temperatures
2. ...which has led to the discovery of over 40 new superconductors so far
3. ...one of which displays a record high transition temperature near 254 Kelvin
4. ...another is the first to display a one-of-a-kind "resonant" superconductivity
5. ...another is the first high-temperature "reentrant" superconductor.
6. I have also created numerous improved versions of the industrial superconductor YBCO,
with Tc's ranging from 105K up to
177K.
7. Plus, my discovery of planar weight disparity has facilitated the discovery of additional
new superconductors by other research teams.
I created SUPERCONDUCTORS in 1999 because there did not seem to be any Internet websites that consolidated superconductor fundamentals "under one roof". There's lots of information out there on the Web. But much of it is gobbledygook to the uninitiated. These pages have been written with the lay person in mind. And, clearly, there was a need. In its first year on the Web SUPERCONDUCTORS logged over 45,000 visitors. In its second year, the visitation rate was nearly twice as high, at 85,000. During the third year, the totals were more than the first two years combined, at over 130,000. And since then, an average of 170,000 people have visited each year.
My highest priority in authoring this website was accuracy. I have gone to great lengths to authenticate the information posted here. Whenever a point was in question, an authority in that particular area was consulted. An effort has also been made to make the pages user-friendly and easy to navigate. You may have noticed that there are no annoying banner ads. Banners could have generated between $140,000 and $700,000 for me at the current rates of 2-10 cents per page click-through. However, I have always felt banners are distracting to anyone trying to learn from a website and decided to forego the money.
Another of my avocations is computers. I have been a participant in the SETI@Home parallel computing project for almost as long as I've had this website.
An ongoing challenge in maintaining an educational website, is determining how technical to make the contents of each page. While SUPERCONDUCTORS was established for beginners, many "beginners" are in college or already have a college education and want information of a higher technical level. The solution deemed most acceptable was to provide frequent hyper-links within each page, through which the reader can obtain additional information.
A local search engine is available to help visitors locate a specific area of interest. This search feature is currently being used by about 1 person in 20 - indicating most people are seeking general, entry-level information. And, daily reports of site searches help improve these pages by revealing deficiencies.
In closing, let me state that a testament to the quality of the information on these pages lies not with me or my credentials. But, rather, with the scores of universities, public schools, libraries, and science/education websites that recommend SUPERCONDUCTORS.ORG. All of the testimonials and plaudits posted on the INDEX and STATS pages arrived without being solicited. For an independent review of this website, click HERE.
