Physicists Teach AI to Identify Exotic States of Matter

Put a tray of water in the freezer. For a while, it’s liquid. And then—boom—the molecules stack into little hexagons, and you’ve got ice. Pour supercold liquid nitrogen onto a wafer of yttrium barium copper oxide, and suddenly electricity flows through the compound with less resistance than beer down a college student’s throat. You’ve got a superconductor.