Superconductivity at room temperature??

[johanfprins]

I've seen enough. Bye.

I hope that you have read my post immediately above in which I explained where our misunderstanding came from. You also had a misunderstanding by not realizing that I was comparing a resistor with a superconductor when using the expression IV. In the case of a superconductor V=0 and in the case of the resistor with resistance R IV=RI^2. The latter energy appears as heat within the resistor and must thus dissipate if the resistor wants to mainntain the same temperature. The fact that this dissipation can occur by means of light radiation or that this heat can be gathered within a cooling bath and used to do work, does not alter the fact that the resistor generates heat that dissipates.

 

[johanfprins]

I've had trouble publishing in a very small field of materials science (I'm a software engineer who used to work with a materials engineer/scientist). There were only two other groups working in the same area at that time, so journal editors would tell us they couldn't find reviewers or the reviewers would be our competition, who would just sit on the papers. Still, everything got published eventually, even if it took years.

In my case it became clear that I have been blacklisted from 2003 after I published my findings on my experiment; and this did not just extend to superconduction. All other papers on any other topics were also immediately blocked for insane reasons. A possible reason why this happened might be the "powers in control" realize that my results also condemns the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, as well as all physics which totally rely on this interpretation" e.g. Dirac's equation and all quantum field theories. The only physics that remains reasonably intact has been derived by engineers when they used Schroedinger's equation Cook Book style WITHOUT ASKING TOO MANY QUESTIONS: i.e "shut-up and calculate".

 

[johanfprins]

You do realise that absolutely anyone can publish on arXiv, right? There are all kinds of crackpot papers published there, by people ranging from tenured professors to nuts working out of their parents' basement. You don't need to "slip them in", you just post them.

Not true: You need to get somebody who has already published on ArXive to "recommend" (I do not know whether this is the correct word) that it can be published. I could not find such a person and then wrote to ArXive telling them that I am isolated. They then allowed me to publish these two manuscripts subject to certain restrictions.

If anyone's interested, the two papers are here:
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0607/0607227.pdf
http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0607/0607209.pdf
The second one is not about superconductivity, but presents some rather... interesting... claims about quantum physics and relativity.

There also appears some slight inconsistencies here. Since arriving here, Prins has claimed that physics has been nonsense and all physicists stupid for the last 110 years,

I do not claim that all physicist have been stupid for 110 years, but that there are serious inconsistencies in elementary physics which have not been picked up by even our best physicists over the past 110 years.

that he was "excommunicated" for questioning their dogmatically held beliefs. However, according to his own website, he is in fact a physicist (although the University of Pretoria say he got his BSc in physics in 1962, not 1961), has been working as a material scientist, lecturer and professor for much of his time since then, and is currently an honorary professor at the University of Pretoria.

In South Africa our Academic Years run from the beginning of the year until the end of the year. The fact that the graduation ceremony was in 1962 is not proof that I finished my BSc in that year but proof that I finished it in 1961.

So, not in fact excommunicated or an ostracised pariah.

You are jumping to a conclusion without having the facts. Do you usually do this? I hope you are not a scientist! The full story with the University of Pretoria is detailed in my book and I am not going to repeat it here just because you are willing to reach an opinion without first verifying your facts.

A retired professor who still holds an honorary title,

Thanks for informing me of this since I have not had contact with them since 2005. Am I still a honorary professor on their books? I did not realize that they still hold me in such high esteem! I am impressed!

but who is trying to push crackpot ideas on a field outside his expertise that have apparently been ignored or dismissed by people who actually are experts in the field. Sadly, it seems to be yet another case of someone who does perfectly good work throughout their life, but loses it at the end and decides that the whole world is against them because their pet nutty theory isn't accepted.

Again you are willing to reach an opinion without checking the facts. It is people like you who are responsible for the fact that the real crackpots on superconduction are the mainstream scientists which you can find at places like Cambridge University. And this opinion of mine IS based on facts. For example, Brian Josephson derived that EM radiation is generated within a Josephson Junction by Cooper Pairs forming an AC current over the junction. An AC current generating EM radiation on the quantum scale!!!. Now that is a crackpot idea if I have ever heard of one. If you explain it correctly as electrons "jumping" from one energy level to the other when passing through the junction, you will find that the charge carriers MUST be singly charged. It thus seems that Josephson must have fudged his physics to fit his preconceived dogma! And you call ME a crackpot?

 

[johanfprins]

Let me be blunt, Johan.
I think that your device did NOT show zero electric field. Because it did not show zero electric field, your device is NOT a superconductor.

After the misunderstanding I had with Sol Invictus, I can understand that you made this post.

Did you do an experiment which would convince me that your device indeed showed zero electric field?

Read my latest answer to Sol Invictus above and let me know what you then think so that we can try to come to a resolution of our differences. Note also that my experiment gives better direct evidence that the electric field is zero than you will find for any other superconducting phase that has been discovered to date.

 

[johanfprins]

I tried to understand the paper and determine the nature of the claim. I didn't succeed, partially because some of the details are technically difficult for me and because I didn't spend enough time, but I do have a few thoughts:

The paper was written in terms of the mathematical approach you find in text books on Solid State Electronics. You are correct that this approach makes the understanding more difficult for those outside this field. The results and conclusion are, however, correct. Since then I have found a much easier approach to understand Solid State Electronic Interfaces. I used the latter approach in my postings above and hope that you will find it easier to understand

1. Mr. Prius is not claiming the discovery of a room temperature super conducting material. He is instead claiming the discovery of an effect which he believes is the result of superconductivity.

Correct. You will, however, be surprised how many people accused me that I have claimed superconduction outright in that paper. I needed some more information to claim that it is actually so. At present I believe that I can make that claim.

3. From my (not very knowledgeable) perspective the phenomena seemed very similar to conduction through a plasma except in this case it seems like plasma conduction has been ruled out because the experiment was done in a vacuum and the diamond and the probe were microscopically examined for any signs of pitting caused by plasma and none was found.

Not just that, but after the phase has formed, one could break the high vacuum and the phase remained. A plasma is critically dependent on the vacuum level. An interesting thing happened after the vacuum was broken, the phase could sustain 1000 V over a distance of about 10 microns while the current is flowing; but when you opened the gap so that the phase had to break up, a mini lightning struck which severely damaged the diamond an d th anode. If the phase were to have been any other material having a resistance causing a voltage across it, it would not have sustained 1000 V in air over such a small distance. Thus this eliminates insane ideas like "whiskers" growing reproducibly every time that the experiment is repeated.

A. Are the results novel? Is the effect well known or at least has it been described before?

Novel enough that a patent was granted.

B. Is Mr. Prius correct that the best explanation is that this is an example of room temperature superconduction? Are there other explanations, such as tunnelling, that might be applicable?

Well this experiment did help me to find a single mechanism that explains all superconducting materials to date e.g. both metals and ceramics. And this model is predictive: There is no other model for superconduction which is predictive.

Funny that you should mention "tunneling": Superconduction is in fact a "tunneling" effect but not in terms of the incorrect interpretation for "tunneling" as derived from the Copenhagen interpretation. "Tunneling" of an electron wave cannot happen "through" an energy barrier: This is impossible in terms of Pauli's Exclusion Principle. "Tunneling" occurs by jumping OVER such a barrier. Heisenberg's relationship for energy and time (which has NOTHING to do with "uncertainty") allows the electron wave to "borrow" energy(delta)E so that it can jump over the barrier in an allowed time interval (delta)t. Thus it is not a "tennis ball" moving through a wall when it reaches it , but a "tennis ball" reaching the wall, suddenly jumping over the wall, and then proceeding as if the wall was not there.

 

[johanfprins]

That's a good reading of the paper.

I cannot agree more!

You're right that what they're seeing looks (in part) like plasma. Conduction turns on at a high "strike" voltage but remains on when the voltage is lowered. However, it looks unlike plasma in that the authors report that the conduction path is on permanently---they say they can leave the voltage off for a week and the conduction is still there. If they're right, then yes this is not a plasma.

See also above what happens when you break the vacuum. Definitely not a plasma!

Quite frankly, it sounds more like a short. Some bit of dust got on their sample, or two wires brushed against each other, or something. They dismiss this (boring) possibility a little too quickly in the paper.

Reproducible dust which waits around until one reaches a reproducible voltage and then maliciously jumps into the gap to confuse us? I do not think so! We have found that when at the switching voltage the current jumped around erratically some "dust" can be be sputtered from the anode. Some non-thinking skeptics want to argue that it is this dust that shorts out the diamond surface and the anode. We have done numerous experiments to discredit this possibility: For example, first pushing the anode onto the diamond surface, then switching on the voltage, and then pulling the anode away slowly so that there is no jumping in the current. The residual anode-dust then decreased to be minimal, but the superconducting phase was still exactly reproducible.

On the other hand, they claim to have repeated the measurement on several samples.

and many times since: Always exactly reproducible and only for diamond substrates which have been implanted to generate a high density of donors near the surface. The higher the density, the larger the gap at which it could be established.

However, there was no attempt whatsoever to measure the voltage drop across the gap. Most of the experimental data is taken with kilovolts on the apparatus and milliamps flowing through it. Um, what? They're looking at circuit with a total of a megaohm resistance in it---how do you claim that one 10um gap must contribute exactly zero resistance? How do you know it's not, say, 20 ohms? Not from the data in the paper.

It was physically impossible to insert two contacts between the diamond surface and the anode or else we would have done this.
Furthermore, measuring a "resistance" which is smaller than you electrometer can measure is no proof of superconductivity. In addition, as posted above, in terms of the best established Solid State Physics, the re cannot be an electric field within the dipole that forms across the diamond surface. The experiment also proves that when the gap is so large that there has to be a field, no conduction takes place at all.

In summary, this paper shows an indeed-surprising, and possibly interesting, behavior of the "tunneling gap" between a diamond and a metal probe. It's the sort of measurement that would prompt *me* to look for a stupid flaw in my equipment setup.

You are welcome to come and try and do so. You are not the first. Nobody could so far find a flaw except to stubbornly insist that it must be "dirt". Dirt which behaves exactly like extracted electrons are predicted to behave in terms of the best established physics EVER? Can you see why people can be blind when they do not want to see?

 

[johanfprins]

thought would be to short across the gap somehow. If the current goes up the resistance across the gap was not zero. But I see problems with this idea.

This has been done since we could move our anode. The voltage remained exactly the same when the anode touched the diamond surface or whether the gap had any value below a critical distance. For one diamond which we succeeded to dope to an even higher level we succeeded in generating a critical gap-distance of 150 micron. The voltage was exactly the same as what was measured when the anode touched the diamond.

On the idea that the voltage can be removed completely and the current can be reestablished by applying a voltage that was too low to get conduction going in the first place:
That is interesting. So how do you suppose you get the setup out of this mode? It seems like the claim is that once the effect has been established something is changed in the experimental setup such that current can be initiated at very low voltages.

By opening the gap suddenly and waiting a while, the phase disappeared completely and then has to be re-established in exactly the same way as before. For the same gap distance it appeared at exactly the same voltage. If after breaking the phase, one immediately started to close the gap, contact could be re-established before the gap became zero. Thus whatever is in the gap slowly disappears when waiting for equilibrium to occur. Electrons forming a SC phase will be sucked back into the diamond.

But what has changed? It is hard to imagine what that might be. ETA: (Except of course for some kind of experimental error, like dust or dendrites).

It is consistent with the electrons having entangled to form a single macro-wave ground-state which does not exist of separate electrons anymore: Similar to "photons" entangling to form a single macro-wave that is a laser beam. The fact that this can happen for electrons prove beyond doubt that such a macro-wave IS NOT a probability distribution, but an actual matter-wave entity

davefoc: You are amazing.

 

[johanfprins]

My guess: the probe and substrate are touching the whole time. Their z-axis translation stage is miscalibrated, or broke midway through the experiment. They thought they were backing the probe from "just touching" to "100um away", but in fact they were backing it from "pressing really hard" to "just touching". Just a guess, but it's perfectly consistent with the data.

The system was built by of the best Hungarian technical person I have met in my life: Mik Rebak. Is an expert watchmaker and aviation instrument maker who escaped from Hungary during the Communist Invasion of 1956. He is world renowned for his prowess and has been asked by various institutions around the world to help them with technical problems: For Example CERN and The Naval Research Laboratory. Although already in his seventies, he is burly and strong. If I tell him about your speculation here and he ever meets you, you can wave goodbye to Good Old Mother Earth.

Do you really think we can be as stupid as that: Or is this your opinion because we are Africans?

 

[johanfprins]

If you really think you're that right, and everyone else is wrong, then provide the proof. Go and spill ALL the beans. Hold NOTHING back... otherwise I conclude that what you're claiming is either false, or you do not really have much enthusiasm for "saving" physics, or both.

This is exactly what I am trying to do; It is for this reason why I wrote the book "The physics Delusion". All I ask from you is not to jump to conclusions as you just did without knowing all the facts. I do not know whether you are a scientist but this is how a scientist is supposed to act. Unfortunately, it seems that it is not the case anymore!

 

[johanfprins]

I call ************.
I'm sorry, but even if your theory is right, this claim is absolutely absurd on its face. There's simply too much data out there for anyone to have fit it all, regardless of the accuracy of the theory. And it's a virtual certainty that some of the data is wrong, so if the theory is correct, it shouldn't agree with everything.

Obviously that will take a lifetime: But all data which has been established so well that it appears in text books, as well as published data which cannot be explained by BCS can be explained by my theory. I give examples of this in my book and have also quoted such manuscripts above.

 

[johanfprins]

One thing that argues against the physically touching explanation is that the effect can be initiated just by increasing the voltage above the turn on level.

Like I stated above you are amazing.

It is interesting though, how well the just barely touching theory fits the available data except for this result. Is it possible that the large potential difference between the probe and the diamond is enough to cause enough physical movement such that the just barely touching theory is correct?

No it cannot be since the voltage at which the phase forms for the same gap using anodes with different work functions scale with the value of the work function. I have not published this since I know that it will just be rejected. But using Solid State Electronics this scaling proves unequivocally that electrons are being extracted into the gap by the anode. The larger the work function the larger the initial voltage is to extract the first electrons from the diamond.

As you all should be aware of: I am at the moment physically and mentally exhausted after having posted all these answers. I also have many other things to attend to and will return to this thread only again on Monday.

 

[Cuddles]

Thanks for informing me of this since I have not had contact with them since 2005. Am I still a honorary professor on their books? I did not realize that they still hold me in such high esteem! I am impressed!

I'll ignore the rest of your inane ranting, but I'll just correct this part. The point about you being an honorary professor was based on your own website, which clearly states you have been an honorary professor from 2000 to the present. Perhaps instead of continuing your bad attitude you should simply avoid telling lies in the first place.

And you call ME a crackpot?

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
You're missing some of the classics, but your score is well into the hundreds.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

I hope that you have read my post immediately above in which I explained where our misunderstanding came from.

I did. Thank you.

I'm not a physicist, so I probably won't have much to say in this thread, but I might ask some questions as I work through the math in your QM paper that Cuddles posted.

 

[dasmiller]

The system was built by of the best Hungarian technical person I have met in my life: Mik Rebak. Is an expert watchmaker and aviation instrument maker who escaped from Hungary during the Communist Invasion of 1956. He is world renowned for his prowess and has been asked by various institutions around the world to help them with technical problems: For Example CERN and The Naval Research Laboratory. Although already in his seventies, he is burly and strong. If I tell him about your speculation here and he ever meets you, you can wave goodbye to Good Old Mother Earth.

Do you understand that suggesting the possibility of violent death for someone who questioned your experimental setup does not improve your credibility here?

 

[catsmate]

You clearly do not have an idea what the difference is between engineering and physics. It is amazing that the engineers could develop all these gadgets even though the interpretation of the physics on which they have been based is fundamentally flawed. Thank God for engineers: They get the job done in spite of the stupid physicists.

Wow, not another one.

If I have to be called a crackpot because I am talking the truth: So be it. After 10 years of insults thrown at me the th real crackpots I do not care anymore what they call me. All I am interested in is to save physics from the claws of the real crackpots who are nowadays in control of this field.

Or perhaps you're being called a crackpot because, well, you are a crackpot? At lease regarding your views on superconductivity.

 

[ben m]

Do you really think we can be as stupid as that: Or is this your opinion because we are Africans?

No, I suspect something like that because I have been "as stupid as that"---and so have my best technicians. This sort of experimental mistake is a perfectly normal occurrence. Things break, things short out, things fall out of calibration, wires get switched, someone throws the switch that changes positive signals into negative. And, typically, the way that you find out is because your data look like nonsense.

When Kamerlingh Onnes saw his resistance do something "unphysical", you know very well that he spent a very, very long time looking for (and, in his case, ruling out) short-circuits. He did not say "how dare you insult my technician".

 

[dlorde]

...http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
You're missing some of the classics, but your score is well into the hundreds.

Disappointingly, the development of the thread, the style and language of the posts, the responses to questions, all have my crackpot senses tingling strongly - it's so familiar...

I don't have the physics to judge the technical details, so I can't comment on the validity of the superconductivity claim, although it would be pretty cool if an important effect like this, previously spurned the physics community, could be helped by JREFF in some way. However, my pattern-matching subconscious is telling me not to hold my breath.

 

[ben m]

After the misunderstanding I had with Sol Invictus, I can understand that you made this post. Read my latest answer to Sol Invictus above and let me know what you then think so that we can try to come to a resolution of our differences. Note also that my experiment gives better direct evidence that the electric field is zero than you will find for any other superconducting phase that has been discovered to date.

I will read this post carefully when I have some time.

At first glance, Johan, it does not look like direct evidence at all. It looks like you saw something weird, you came up with a (rather complex) model (including an E=0 condition) to explain it. You are saying that "because my E=0 model explains the data, the data proves E=0." That is indirect evidence---it's practically the definition of indirect evidence.

Proof? No! That's not how hypothesis testing works, even for a loose definition of "proof". To convince people that E=0 you need direct probes of the E=0 condition itself---not ones that need to assume your band structure is right---and/or you need multiple independent probes of your model.

You think your evidence is better than other evidence? The NMR magnets down the hall whose persistent current has been running for ten years? That's pretty bluntly convincing.

 

[Ziggurat]

Obviously that will take a lifetime: But all data which has been established so well that it appears in text books, as well as published data which cannot be explained by BCS can be explained by my theory. I give examples of this in my book and have also quoted such manuscripts above.

I'm thinking of two experimental results in particular that I'm curious about. The first is the linear relationship between incommensurability and Tc in various doped samples of La2CuO4, which you can find in figure 10 of this paper:
http://prb.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v57/i10/p6165_1
I'm also curious about how to explain the magnetic-field-induced magnetic order in electron-doped NCCO, seen here (for example, the insets on Fig. 3a):
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v423/n6939/full/nature01641.html
How does your theory explain these results?

 

[sol invictus]

....<snipped for brevity>....

Thanks for the response, and apology accepted. What I was asking for was indeed the evidence that the electric field is zero. However I don't find much of that in your response. As far as I can understand, you didn't measure the field (and cannot, given your experimental setup). Instead, you are arguing that it must be zero based on some theoretical considerations.... while simultaneously arguing that major chunks of physic theory is wrong. That's not very convincing.

There's an old adage - "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". I don't think the evidence you're presented here rises to anything close to that standard.

How could you convince me? One way would be to find a way to actually measure the field. Another would be to exhibit a current that sustains itself over a very long period (which is a good definition of superconductivity). But arguing that "there can't be a current unless the E field is zero, therefore the E field is zero, but if there is a current and the E field is zero it's a superconductor" doesn't cut it for me.

Your application of the theory to this situation may be wrong. Or the theory itself could be wrong (doubtful, but considering you are asserting much of physics is wrong, why not?). Or, most likely, the situation is not quite what you think it is.