| H. Kamerlingh Onnes, after having successfully liquified helium in 1908, investigated the low temperature resistivity of mercury in 1911. The mercury could be made very pure by distillation, and this was important because the resistivity at low temperatures tends to be dominated by impurity effects. He found that the resistivity suddenly dropped to zero at 4.2K, a phase transition to a zero resistance state. This phenomenon was calledsuperconductivity, and the temperature at which it occurred is called its critical temperature.
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