High (relatively) temparature superconductor.

Post #7,276 by a6l6e6x 8/30/01 5:34:21 PM Reply	High (relatively) temparature superconductor. Buckyballs strike again. If you can call below minus 249 degrees Fahrenheit a high temperature. [link\|http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010830/tc/tech_superconductors_dc_2.html\|Article re:(Lucent) Bell Labs.] Alex Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. -- Anne Frank
Post #7,328 by ben_tilly 8/31/01 12:14:59 PM Reply	I hate articles that mistranslate into Farenheight Absolute 0 is -273.16 C which is -459.7 F. Therefore to the nearest degree they should be saying that absolute 0 is -460 F rather than -459 F. And it goes on from there. For instance not all conductors become superconductors, just many metals. And they don't do it at absolute 0, but rather a few degrees above. But yes, this result is very interesting. Here is some background about what it could mean. Now switching into Kelvin, here is the scoop. Absolute 0 is 0 K. Freezing is 273 K. A cool room is 290 K. The first superconductor discovered was mercury at 4 K. The best pure metal was lead about 7 K. In the 50's and 60's it was discovered that some compounds could do a lot better than that. Some of them into the 20's K. Prior to 1986, that was it. You couldn't study superconductors without a specialized lab. You couldn't use them without very specialized cooling equipment. In 1986 we discovered ceramic superconductors. The first one was at 35 K. Within a couple of years we were at 120 K, and this class topped out at 125 K. This is important. It means that anyone who can put their hands on liquid nitrogen (which is mass produced and stored in thermos containers) can play with superconductivity. This is warm enough for industrial applications like magnetically levitated trains. Of course it still isn't even half-way to room temperature. Now if I can trust translating their numbers back to Kelvin, this discovery is only about 117 K - not as good as existing ceramics. But the key is that this is the second class of compound that we can get above 77 K (so liquid nitrogen is sufficient to cool it) and we have no idea where this class of compounds is going to hit its limit. From what it sounds like, they have pretty good ideas on what they need to do to improve it. It might not do as well as ceramics. It might be able to get a lot hotter. It will have different physical properties, so it may be usable some places that ceramics are not. And if we can get 2 classes of compound up to this temperature, then we have more ideas to try to get a third class going. In other words, this discovery is already commercially useful, and we haven't ruled out the holy grail of it leading to a major industrial revolution. Certainly it is the best prospect of room temperature superconductivity that we have seen in the last 10 years... Cheers, Ben
Post #7,347 by a6l6e6x 8/31/01 2:09:44 PM Reply	Writer used Excel spreadsheet for temp conversions. :) Alex Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad. -- Euripides
Post #7,358 by Ashton 8/31/01 4:06:34 PM Reply	An early 'practical app' (?) As CPUs ---> THz @ KAmps; lowest possible voltages - largest part of your portable may be the thermos, insulated with Aerogel in alum. Mylar containment (rilly light). (As to generating the power to run a thermopile + compressor to make the LN locally, via cold fusion: Billy (or Scott McN or..) may well be salivating today, over prospects of patenting The T-Box.) Surely, right after the military aps shall come - the toys. Next: trade in those mere 7300# Explorers for Hum-Vees in every driveway. I can See it... Ashton Tesla Cayce
Post #7,505 by ben_tilly 9/2/01 2:47:31 PM Reply	We have plenty of practical applications [link\|http://www.superconductors.org/Uses.htm\|Here is a list.] This one does not necessarily add any new applications. But it represents the first sign of progress towards the dream of room-temperature superconductors that we have seen in a decade. If we could get there, we would have ourselves a minor industrial revolution. :-) Cheers, Ben
Post #7,574 by Ric Locke 9/3/01 3:11:21 PM Reply	Explorers >>Surely, right after the military aps shall come - the toys. Next: trade in those mere 7300# Explorers for Hum-Vees in every driveway. I can See it... And why not? If the energy's there without burning up that Ole Debbil Oil... Speaking of debbils, 'specially in details, some terminology might be handy. Explorer is a relatively small version of the Diabolic Utility Vehicle. Later, Ford noted that much attention was given to the Chevrolet/GM Suburban (which is notably larger), and bethought themselves. The result was Expedition and its fellow demon Navigator, which are both much larger than Explorer but still smaller than Suburban. That last proved problematic. GM produced a series of ads, featuring Dallas Cowboys and other sizeable critters trying to contort themselves into the back seat of Expeditions, making no bones of the fact that the Ford product was gasp not big enough. Those ran on the teevee around here for quite some time, causing Ford mavens to gnash teeth. What to do, what to do, especially since in areas where those ads ran, Suburban stayed comfortably ahead in the sales figures. And of course, being sufficiently Vile for all normal Diabolic Purposes, after spells and incantations [featuring, no doubt, sacrifice of a Green to the God Petroleum, though I've no inside knowledge] Ford brought forth Excursion. Even I, who believe that all promoters of little bitty cars should be required to drive from Ft. Stockton to San Antonio and back, with the seat belt buckles welded closed, in August, refer to the new vehicle as the Ford Excessive. It's big. But the Suburban ads featuring Great Big Guys sitting in comfort in the back seat... disappeared. And people do buy Excursions; I've seen several on the roads around here. Mostly, though, they seem to regard it, as I do, as a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the whole concept; intimidated by the sheer bulk, they back off to something slightly more sensible. So if you're going to complain about DUVs and 7300 lb. cars, use the right name: Excursion. By comparison, Explorer is almost a VW -- Regards, Ric
Post #7,581 by CRConrad 9/3/01 6:38:11 PM Reply	So Ford owns both big browsers? Things to make you go Hmm...
Post #7,588 by Ashton 9/3/01 7:37:41 PM Reply	Bow to superior research! I simply have ingrained.. that pic I saw, listing Explorer spec and that 7300 lbs made my permanent memory space. Also, having briefly owned a '70 Buick Riviera (purchased for a song, from an ashamed writer of er backpacking! books) - at the height of the last - not next - umm gas crisis, I had experience. This car taught me not to lump ALL Detroit iron into category, "evil-handling POS". I deemed its mere 5000 lb. weight bloody excessive at the outset; nor does that assessment fail with passage of time. BUT - In fact it was a rather OK-handling gran turismo kinda beast, 130+ top speed (!) if you can imagine driving a house down the road, over the ton.. good ventilated disks that worked and - handling! sufficiently able to - goose the ass-end of an offensive TR-driver, around a tight series of S-curves. In brief - not a bad tourer IF.. $/gas/survival ideas, had never entered one's pretty-little head. So - to add FIFTY PERCENT to that mass !! get an evil-handling Excessmobile, sold only for the Walter Mitty image of driving up Mt. Everest and assaulting delicate tundra everywhere.. Well I just natch latched onto Exploder as being: excessive enough. (But I had realized that Lincoln had created perhaps the Last Gasp of the LookAtMe Asshole Clan, but should have remembered that, nothing Does exceed like excess, especially in Murica [gawd, Especially in Texas ?!]) {sigh} I guess when image is all, and you don't have an inferiority complex; you Are inferior: why nothing.. seems quite.. Big enough (?) Izzat it? Ashton Marketing very-Ltd. our heart's not in it, but WTF: we're whores too.
Post #7,423 by boxley 9/1/01 12:47:03 AM Reply	well now I am totally confused has anyone looked at the properties of h20 to see why it appears to be a superconductor? having being only executed once by mishap right foot in water left hand grabbing 110volt line. thank god for the fence it whipped me into. Is either oxy or hydrogren better or is the combo better.Is there any experiments on this? thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #7,427 by static 9/1/01 3:11:31 AM Reply	Water a superconductor? Water is naturally a conductor, unless it is 100% pure. I don't know the chemistry or physics of this. Superconductivity is a different beast: it involves currents that take no effort to create or maintain, hence why they are used to create (electro-) magnets. I think. Wade, whose knowledge of superconductivity is a bit sketchy. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #7,475 by boxley 9/1/01 9:32:26 PM Reply	conductivity wether super or no is the measurement of the resistance (impedence) of electricity. A superconductor has no measurable resistance. I just dont remember what the resistance of water is. If it is low we could transport through water tubes. thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #7,493 by Another Scott 9/2/01 9:03:55 AM Reply	Pure water = 18.2 M-Ohm-cm. "De-ionized" water has the highest resistivity you can get in water. When water is exposed to air it absorbs carbon dioxide and becomes acidic and its resistivity drops, so it must be continuously filtered to remain pure. It also drops due to dissolved minerals, lead, etc. By contrast, superconductors have exactly zero resistance. Cheers, Scott.

Welcome to IWETHEY!