Applied superconductivity: frustrations and hopes

The alternation of bright triumphs generating far-reaching expectations and subsequent deep disappointments is a characteristic feature of the development of applied superconductivity, associated with creating superconducting windings and winding wires. This, unfortunately, testifies to the inadequacy of scientific and technical foundations formed on the basis of several speculative hypotheses and a useful, but not quite accurate, model of the critical state. The protracted romantic period of evolution has been marked by a noticeable number of remarkable but overly costly advances in industrial physics. At the same time, the victim of the situation turned out to be commercial applications, without the development of which the huge economic potential of applied superconductivity will remain unrealized.