cooling a WB and maximum size of WB's

Discuss the technical details of an "open source" community-driven design of a polywell reactor.

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blaisepascal
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Post by blaisepascal »

D Tibbets wrote:
Breakable wrote:I read in science fiction books that superconductor always maintains the same temperature across itself. Is it true?
If so then all the cooling problems can be solved by having a superconducting heat pipe.
Nobody has chimed in, so I will. In my ignorance I'll assume that the constant temperature of a superconducter is due to the enviorment it is in, not due to superconducting...
I don't think that's what's happening here. The only place I remember from my reading of SF of a superconductor maintaining the same temperature was from a Larry Niven novel in which the superconductor in question was (a) very high temperature (as in it was necessary for the plot for it to be able to superconduct at 373.15K), and (b) also a perfect conductor of heat.

I know there are no known superconductors with transition temperatures anywhere near that high, and I see no reason to believe that superconducting electricity would imply superconducting heat.

In short, I believe the "superconductor which maintains constant temperature throughout its bulk" is a case of "SF author making things up".

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