Spin Gaps in High Temperature Superconductors

The phenomenology and theory of spin gap effects in high temperature superconductors is summarized. It is argued that the spin gap behavior can only be explained by a model of charge 0 spin 1/2 fermions which become paired into singlets and that there are both theoretical and experimental reasons for believing that the pairing is greatly enhanced in the bilayer structure of the $YBa_2Cu_3O_{6+x}$ system. This article will appear in the Proceedings of the Stanford Conference on Spectroscopies in Novel Superconductors. To obtain postscript files containing the figures send mail to [email protected].