  We revisit a venerable question: what is the nature of the ordering in a
superconductor? We find that the answer is properly that the superconducting
state exhibits topological order in the sense of Wen, i.e. that while it lacks
a local order parameter, it is sensitive to the global topology of the
underlying manifold and exhibits an associated fractionalization of quantum
numbers. We show that this perspective unifies a number of previous
observations on superconductors and their low lying excitations and that this
complex can be elegantly summarized in a purely topological action of the
``$BF$'' type and its elementary quantization. On manifolds with boundaries,
the $BF$ action correctly predicts non-chiral edge states, gapped in general,
but crucial for fractionalization and establishing the ground state degeneracy.
In all of this the role of the physical electromagnetic fields is central. We
also observe that the $BF$ action describes the topological order in several
other physically distinct systems thus providing an example of topological
universality.
