Superconductivity at room temperature??

[shadron]

Mind reading devices, computers capable of surveillance of whole cities, all sorts of goodies.

Ooooohhh, that was mean!!

 

[Scott Haley]

I rode a maglev train once--a train that uses powerful magnets to fly above the tracks. They had to use superconducting magnets to make that happen. To make the superconductors cold enough, they had to use liquid helium, which is difficult and expensive. If superconductors could work at higher temperatures, we might have more floating trains.

Rail guns are gadgets that use a magnetic field to shoot projectiles at incredible speed. The U.S. government has researched using them to shoot down missiles. You need superconducting electromagnets to do that too.

When we transmit electricity down miles of wires & cables, we lose a big percentage of it. If there could ever be superconducting transmission lines, people all over the world would need to generate less electricity, which would really be good for our environments.

 

[Macgyver1968]

What kind of technology could come out of room-temperature superconductors

You could have amplifiers that go to 12!

 

[Roxane]

What kind of technology could come out of room-temperature superconductors

I'm pretty sure I would have a hoverboard.

 

[ben m]

Fun applications of room temperature superconductors:

a) Take any electric motor you can think of and shrink it my a factor of 3 or so. I have no idea how big an impact this would have in general, but it sounds good.

b) I'm told you can build ultra-sensitive radio receivers with superconducting filters, so expect superconducting cell phones with amazing reception.

c) Power storage; you can buffer the (varying) output of a solar or wind energy plant by letting it charge and discharge a large superconducting wire loop. This isn't cost-effective if you need cryogenics around your wire, but could be great with RTS.

 

[catsmate]

What I find really interesting about these type of people is how they never find funding for their ideas.
Hell there are people funding crackpot ideas all the time in the world of finance, politics and religion......

If anyone could show serious evidence of a room temperature superconductor there are literally scores of universities, institutions and companies that would sponsor them.

 

[fuelair]

What kind of technology could come out of room-temperature superconductors

You don't want to know - the stuff operating without has already given you way too much to worry about.

 

[fuelair]

I rode a maglev train once--a train that uses powerful magnets to fly above the tracks. They had to use superconducting magnets to make that happen. To make the superconductors cold enough, they had to use liquid helium, which is difficult and expensive. If superconductors could work at higher temperatures, we might have more floating trains.

Rail guns are gadgets that use a magnetic field to shoot projectiles at incredible speed. The U.S. government has researched using them to shoot down missiles. You need superconducting electromagnets to do that too.

When we transmit electricity down miles of wires & cables, we lose a big percentage of it. If there could ever be superconducting transmission lines, people all over the world would need to generate less electricity, which would really be good for our environments.

OK, now you've done it - someone is really going to start worrying now - please do not mention any further tech improvements !!!

 

[catsmate]

What kind of technology could come out of room-temperature superconductors

Basically anything to do with magnetic fields (MRI/NMR, SQUIDs, electric motors, maglev, magnetic plasma confinement, particle accelerators, transformers, magnetic material separation [e.g. desalination]) and electrical conduction; SMES burst power storage; RF filters for everything from cellular comms to phased array radars

Basically a disruptive technology comparable to integrated circuits or solid state electronics but with more rapid effects.

 

[dasmiller]

Fun applications of room temperature superconductors:

a) Take any electric motor you can think of and shrink it my a factor of 3 or so. I have no idea how big an impact this would have in general, but it sounds good.

As somebody with a hobby that revolves around lightweight, efficient electric motors - it depends. IIRC, some superconductors have very limited current handling (for a given cross-section), so that may determine whether a RTS-electric motor could be smaller. It could certainly be more efficient, of course.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

You're replication certainly replication good replication at replication replicating replication that replication word replication across replication the replication forum.

Ain't it the truth!

 

[MattusMaximus]

I call crackpot. If this guy had really discovered true room-temperature superconductivity, then the physics community would have been on fire over it. So far, not a peep.

 

[InfidelSavant]

Is it bad that the first thing I could think of with room temperature superconductors would be delivering a large burst of energy from a marx generator through to a vircator with minimal loss?

 

[Ririon]

Is it bad that the first thing I could think of with room temperature superconductors would be delivering a large burst of energy from a marx generator through to a vircator with minimal loss?

I am a bit concerned that you don't have the words "hand held" or "portable" in there.

 

[InfidelSavant]

I am a bit concerned that you don't have the words "hand held" or "portable" in there.

With the discussion being around room temperature superconductors, I figured that was implied

 

[ben m]

As somebody with a hobby that revolves around lightweight, efficient electric motors - it depends. IIRC, some superconductors have very limited current handling (for a given cross-section), so that may determine whether a RTS-electric motor could be smaller. It could certainly be more efficient, of course.

I haven't worked with HTS wire, but for old-fashioned superconductors (!) the limiting current is huge. I've been designing a system which mixed water-cooled copper coils and Ni superconductors; we assumed 70A/cm^2 through the copper and 15000A/cm^2 through the Ni.

ETA: for "Ni" read "Nb".

 

[dasmiller]

I haven't worked with HTS wire, but for old-fashioned superconductors (!) the limiting current is huge. I've been designing a system which mixed water-cooled copper coils and Ni superconductors; we assumed 70A/cm^2 through the copper and 15000A/cm^2 through the Ni.

I remembered reading an article several years ago where the relatively low current capacity of some particular HTS would have made it impractical for high power applications. However, I have no reason to think that the current limitation is typical for HTSs (and a quick bit of Googling suggests that it's not).

So, though my original assertion was technically correct (if the RTS had a low critical current density, it wouldn't allow for smaller motors), I don't have any good reason to expect that a RTS would have a lower critical current.

 

[!Kaggen]

Another way of thinking of it is this:

If you're trying to do something impossible, no amount of funding is enough.

So take the perpetual-motion inventor who funded a wooden prototype out of pocket. The thing isn't a perpetual-motion machine, but the inventor thinks it is---he just needs a $5,000 picoammeter to prove it. (If the story ends here, we've got a crackpot who will tell you that his idea died for lack of funding.)

Suppose the inventor convinces his cousin to put up $10K to fund further experiments. He builds a metal prototype with fancy supermagnets and an expensive readout. Still not a perpetual motion machine, but the inventor thinks it is---it just needs $30,000 magnetic bearings. (If the story ends here, we've got a crackpot who will tell you that his idea died for lack of funding.)

Suppose the inventor cons $100,000 out of a gullible viscount or something. He blows through that on fancy literature, mass mailings, graphics, travel, and so on, as he tries to attract investors to this machine that he's certain is a few tweaks away from a Nobel. (If the story ends here, we've got a crackpot who will tell you that his idea died for lack of funding.)

And so on.

The only three endings for a crackpot story are:

1) The crackpot learns that his idea was wrong all along.
2) The crackpot goes to his grave thinking that he would have triumphed except for an external misfortune, having nothing to do with the truth of his idea, in the form of:
a) Lack of research funds
b) Academic closed-mindedness and/or industrial conspiracies
3) The crackpot was right all along and wins the Nobel.

Now this is one epic Shakespeare missed
Any one in Hollywood?

 

[davefoc]

Others have touched on it, but it is conceivable that the development of room temperature super conductors would have no practical value whatsoever.

If the maximum current density was too low or the cost of the materials was too high the only benefits might be increased scientific insight into the nature of super conduction of possibly physics in general.

There is some analogy here to the development of a perpetual motion machine. It seems at first glance that the practical benefits would be immense but if the energy gain was infinitesimal so that the cost of the energy produced was enormous it still wouldn't have any practical use.

 

[ben m]

Others have touched on it, but it is conceivable that the development of room temperature super conductors would have no practical value whatsoever.

If the maximum current density was too low or the cost of the materials was too high the only benefits might be increased scientific insight into the nature of super conduction of possibly physics in general.

Maybe for power-transmission and magnetic-field applications. For electronics applications (filters, antennas, sensors, etc.) you can get a huge amount of added value by running tiny currents through tiny conductors.

There is some analogy here to the development of a perpetual motion machine. It seems at first glance that the practical benefits would be immense but if the energy gain was infinitesimal so that the cost of the energy produced was enormous it still wouldn't have any practical use.

From a technology point of view, I agree---that's one of the reasons that fusion, even when it's running above-breakeven and behaving as "free energy", does not instantly change the energy world.

On the other hand: if someone were to find a mechanism that allowed perpetual-motion/free-energy at all ... well, there'd have to be a law of physics governing that free energy, and it's very likely that someone would figure out how to translate that law into a useful machine. Everything has a scaling law of some sort. Does the new law only work on very small scales? Fine, someone will figure out how to micro-machine a million little free-energy motors onto a chip. Does it work only on very large scales? Fine, a multinational consortium will spend $10B and build a gigantic one near Cadarache.

The same is somewhat the case for superconductors. If there's a mechanism that allows RTS at all, people will find out what it is, and they will try very hard to engineer a material with a high critical current. Here, however, there's not necessarily a scaling law---we only have one Periodic Table to work with, and the desired answer might just not be in there.