Superconductivity Theory

[Mike Holmes]

Once again I'll leave it to the well educated on the subject to say if this has any importance:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 132930.htm

The story sure sounds interesting...

Mike

[Brandon]

Having near-zero resistance to electric current is very applicable to polywell, especially if this can be done at temperatures closer to room temperature...electron flow = magnetic field

[drmike]

Basically, they tried to break a superconductor in a known way, and it didn't break. So they came up with a model that explains this. A more fundamental question will be is their model correct, or is there some other way to explain the behavior.

In any case, it is a really nice discovery. Proves there is a hell of a lot we still don't know about how things work!

[KitemanSA]

What interests me is the recent indications of superconductivity near 200K. That should be quite easy to support. Not room temperature, but a lot closer than 77K.

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, that's mentioned in the Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-tempe ... rconductor

Mike

[scareduck]

What interests me is the recent indications of superconductivity near 200K. That should be quite easy to support. Not room temperature, but a lot closer than 77K.

Superconductivity at liquid nitrogen temperatures would be a big improvement over liquid helium temperatures.

[KitemanSA]

What interests me is the recent indications of superconductivity near 200K. That should be quite easy to support. Not room temperature, but a lot closer than 77K.

Superconductivity at liquid nitrogen temperatures would be a big improvement over liquid helium temperatures.

You bet, and SC at dry-ice temperatures would be better still!

[Professor Science]

What interests me is the recent indications of superconductivity near 200K. That should be quite easy to support. Not room temperature, but a lot closer than 77K.

Superconductivity at liquid nitrogen temperatures would be a big improvement over liquid helium temperatures.

You bet, and SC at dry-ice temperatures would be better still!

assuming you don't use dry ice, solids are hard to pump, I'd wager.

[KitemanSA]

You bet, and SC at dry-ice temperatures would be better still!

assuming you don't use dry ice, solids are hard to pump, I'd wager.

True.
In the NASA... forum that preceded this one there was a long discussion on using certian electronics cooling fluids as a preference to LN because they have a much higher specific heat, but it turns out they get gloppy at LN temperatures. I suspect they would be a lot less viscous at 200K than 77k.

[hanelyp]

You bet, and SC at dry-ice temperatures would be better still!

Assuming you don't use dry ice, solids are hard to pump, I'd wager.

Assuming dry ice as a refrigerant, alcohol or acetone might be circulated for heat transfer. But in any case, the higher your superconductor operating temperature, the easier the refrigeration.

[StevePoling]

Assuming dry ice as a refrigerant, alcohol or acetone might be circulated for heat transfer.

Back in college I wandered past a lab and saw some friends goofing around with dry ice and acetone. They did most of the same fun things (e.g. shattering roses) you see done with liquid nitrogen.

[Professor Science]

to be fair liquid nitrogen is somewhat overkill for things like that, as it's at 70 K, while dry ice would probably be around 220 K, maybe a bit lower. water freezes spontaneously at 233 K and the acetone likely just provided something to conduct the heat to and from readily.

edit: OK, bad use of the term spontaneously, i meant without crystaline seed. water can be chilled considerably below 0 celsius if it doesn't have something to form a crystal around. example.

[MSimon]

Dry ice is 194.6K

http://www.economicexpert.com/a/1:E2:K.htm

[Professor Science]

I was working off of -50 celsius, guess i had a trivia point mis memorized. to be fair, the only time i needed a specific temperature on it was to figure out if i could use it as a coolant for my super chilled water runs and when i found out it was too cold i disregarded it all together.