In 1985, Ernst Bauer and his student Wolfgang Telieps published a stunning set of images that abruptly solved a long‐debated question in surface science: What is the nature of the phase transition that occurs on the (111) surface of silicon? Determining the complex ordered arrangement of atoms, or “reconstruction,” that occurs there had been one of the hottest problems in surface science for nearly 25 years. One of their images (see figure 1) shows a sharply defined coexistence between two structural phases and demonstrates a first‐order—rather than a continuous second‐order—transition between an ordered (bright) and disordered (dark) arrangement of atoms at the surface. Bauer and Telieps's unambiguous answer about the nature of that disordering transition dramatically introduced a very powerful probe of solid surfaces: low‐energy electron microscopy (LEEM).