Type-I superconductors are simpler to explain, but of limited use since they cannot coexist with a magnetic field.

ECONOMIST: The Nobel prizes

Alexei Abrikosov, who now works at the Argonne National Laboratory, in Illinois, and Vitaly Ginzburg of the Lebedev Physical Institute, in Moscow, were responsible for discovering how type-II superconductors work (it is all down to the behaviour of their electrons).

ECONOMIST: The Nobel prizes