Georg Bednorz

Johannes Georg Bednorz (born 16 May 1950) is a German physicist best known for co-discovering high-temperature superconductivity in ceramic materials, a breakthrough that revolutionized the field of condensed matter physics.

Bednorz was born in Neuenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, as the fourth child of Anton and Elisabeth Bednorz, into a family with a strong interest in science and the arts. He initially studied chemistry at the University of Münster starting in 1968 but shifted his focus to crystallography and solid-state physics, earning his master's degree (Diplom) there in 1976. In 1977, he moved to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich to pursue his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Heini Gränicher at the Laboratory of Solid State Physics, completing his doctorate in 1982 with a thesis on structural, magnetic, and electrical properties of perovskites.