Much of the technology we take for granted today, from mobile phone reception to MRI scanning, would be unthinkable without discoveries made by Alexei Abrikosov in Russia half a century ago. In the early 1950s, Abrikosov was one of only a handful of scientists around the world studying the phenomenon of superconductivity, the ability of electricity to pass through certain materials without resistance, usually at incredibly low temperatures. His discoveries took many years to gain widespread...