Off-Diagonal Long-Range Order and Flux Quantization

In my first months at Bell Labs in 1949 I was fortunate enough to be required to share a room with G. H. Wannier. I learned much from Gregory, including an almost superstitious awe of Lars Onsager. This was little diminished when I actually met him in Japan in 1953, at the International Conference on Theoretical Physics, where his talks and discussion remarks gave fundamental insights into at least three subjects in the form of mysterious, oracular discussions, so many years ahead of their time as to bewilder most of their listeners. (The subjects were metallic diamagnetism, liquid helium, and superconductivity.)

I can't resist the temptation to indulge in one Onsager story of that trip. This was the first considerable scientific conference the Japanese had been able to manage, only a year after the peace treaty had been signed, and they were determined to make the most of it in terms of showing off their beautiful country as well as their science. It was also typhoon season, and we had waited through a typhoon in Osaka before being bussed to Nara. Not surprisingly, the bus slid off the terrible road (Japan then had no car industry, much less a road system) into a sinkhole, many miles from either city. Drivers, local farmers, and physicists stood around jabbering in several languages until Onsager, with a sigh, firmly took charge. He organized a work crew of local farmers to dismantle a log bridge over the ditch, arranged a system of levers, and with the muscle of 20 or 30 physicists and Onsager's direction and encouragement, we, to our astonishment, put the bus back on the road: all of this totally without communication from Onsager other than grunts, smiles and gestures. (I am told he owned a farm in New Hampshire — surely he came from Norwegian farm stock.)…