Scientists Create Room Temperature Superconductor 380
StarEmperor writes "A team of Canadian and German scientists have fabricated a room-temperature superconductor, using a highly compressed silicon-hydrogen compound. According to the article,"The researchers claim that the new material could sidestep the cooling requirement, thereby enabling superconducting wires that work at room temperature.""
I don't believe it (Score:2, Insightful)
Superconducting Monster cables? (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy step now (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn you samzenpus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damn you samzenpus (Score:3, Insightful)
So what (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:1, Insightful)
I suppose you live you in the Physics Fun house.
He we have our frictionless room....
Oh and over here is our pride and joy, a room that maintains a constant temperature and volume.
Re:Business perspective (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Damn you samzenpus (Score:5, Insightful)
I work in nuclear fusion. One of the things we lust after in my field of research is more efficient superconducting magnets. Hell, even getting up to liquid nitrogen temperatures would be amazing for us. In the meantime, we're stuck with using liquid He and associated cryogenics, plus extra nuclear shielding around the $$$ SC coils.
Oh well. I thought we might have had something truly wonderful going with this one tonight, but it's just false advertising... (sigh)
Re:Room-pressure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Once superconductors don't require huge apparatus for cooling or even pressure, I expect labs will make superconducting semiconductors [google.com] less exotic.
Re:So what (Score:4, Insightful)
Morbo voice: "Resources do not work that way!"
What is being talked about here is *economically recoverable reserves*. What is economically recoverable depends on two things:
1) Current prices. As prices rise, by definition of the term "economically", more reserves become economical. Typically increasing exponentially.
2) Technology. Technology improvements act as a counter to increasingly difficult to extract reserves. Improvements can outpace it, wherein prices drop, or be outpaced by it, wherein prices rise. Example: adjusted for inflation, oil today is cheaper than it was back in the late 1800s when it bubbled to the surface in Pennsylvania (as opposed to having to be driven up from miles underground in inhospitable locations)
The applicability of this to oil [daughtersoftiresias.org] and lithium [daughtersoftiresias.org] are discussed.
Re:worth a read (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what (Score:5, Insightful)