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Science

Possible Room Temperature Superconductor Achieved 264

TechkNighT_1337 sends news that surfaced on the Next Big Future blog, concerning research out of the University of Bengal, in India. The report is of a possible superconducting effect at ambient room temperatures. Here is the paper on the ArXiv. (Note that this research has not been peer-reviewed or published yet.) "We report the observation of an exceptionally large room-temperature electrical conductivity in silver and aluminum layers deposited on a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate. The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K. The results are strongly suggestive of a superconductive interfacial layer, and have been interpreted in the framework of Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons as the suggested mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. ... The fact that the results described above have been obtained from very simply-fabricated systems, without the use of any sophisticated set-up and any special attention being given to crystal purity, atomic perfection, lattice matching, etc. suggests that the physical process is a universal one, involving only an interface between a metal and an insulator with a large low-frequency dielectric constant. We note in passing that PZT and the cuprates have similar (perovskite or perovskite-based) crystal structures. This resemblance may provide an added insight into the basic mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity."
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Possible Room Temperature Superconductor Achieved

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @06:57PM (#33052144)

    After reading the summary, everything is plainly obvious...

    (walks away slowly before anyone can notice I didn't understand anything)

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      Exactly so obvious. And you know, it sounds entirely possible it's superconducting, but you know they really won't know if it is or not until they (mumble mumble mumble...)

      Actually, I'll just come right out and ask: how is it that this is just "possible?" I understand that they set up a device to measure resistance, and it sounds like its just a very thin layer that is actually superconducting which sounds like it could complicate things, but then it just says there was a "sharp change" in the conductivit

      • Re:Of course! (Score:5, Informative)

        by thrawn_aj ( 1073100 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @10:46PM (#33053414)

        *sigh* It's even worse than that. IAAP and I was very excited to see this ... at first. The article by the way is very well written (serious science - not a crank). The problem is that the data (figure 2 in the arxiv paper - everyone should check this out btw) on which the author hangs all his hopes is seriously noisy (compared to the size of the "kink" that he superposes on the graph). In other words, if you imagine erasing the drawn-in kink, such artifacts occur several places in the data and are generally not above the noise level.

        So, I would say that the conclusion is highly unwarranted given the state of the existing signal to noise. However, if the author truly feels there's something promising, he simply has to go about improving his signal. To be fair, the /. title is far more ambitious compared to the original article (indications of ...). He's merely putting this out in the wild to get feedback from other researchers in the field (which is solely what Arxiv is used for by serious researchers, not as a publication destination).

        As it stands, the "kink" seems to be nothing more than (one of several) noise bumps. I'll be keeping an eye on this guy of course. Maybe something might come out of this, who know?

        • Re:Of course! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by getuid() ( 1305889 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @03:38AM (#33054184)

          *sigh* It's even worse than that. IAAP and I was very excited to see this ... at first. The article by the way is very well written (serious science - not a crank). The problem is that the data (figure 2 in the arxiv paper - everyone should check this out btw) on which the author hangs all his hopes is seriously noisy (compared to the size of the "kink" that he superposes on the graph). In other words, if you imagine erasing the drawn-in kink, such artifacts occur several places in the data and are generally not above the noise level.

          Not necessarily. When analysing experimental data, keep in mind that it's not only the ~5 points of the kink that carry relevant information, it's *all* the points! Thus, the proper way to look at the graph would be to focus first the lower half (up to the kink), and then on the upper half, and see what's changed. If, for example, linear fits to the separate data regions give separate straight lines, this could mean that there is something in the data.

          That having been said: although IAAS (I am a scientist), I'm not a transport measurements guy and I'm not familiar with the state-of-the-art methods in this particular experimental technique... The guys improving their experimental technique would certainly not hurt at all, but for now, I'd leave it to the peer reviewers to estimate the relevance of *this* particular graph ;-)

        • Re:Of course! (Score:4, Interesting)

          by ctrl-alt-canc ( 977108 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @04:28AM (#33054312)

          Totally agree. I too find that the measurements reported in the paper are quite suspicious. Furthermore I have noticed that there is no mention about the oscillator frequency used for collecting the data shown in figure 2, so it is difficult to judge how much significant is the "kink" upon which most of the paper claims are standing. It is also questionable the fact that he had to use a current excitation signal at 20 Hz in order to improve the measurement. PZT is a well-known piezoelectric material, so I wonder if his measurements were simply contaminated by noise induced by periodical mechanical vibrations: unfortunately in the paper there is no mention about the physical setup of his experiment (neither he reports how many PZT strips he tested...).

          By the way...IAAP, although not working on superconductors :-(

        • Re:Of course! (Score:5, Informative)

          by RelativeKny ( 1865892 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @05:45AM (#33054536)
          IAAP too, although in experimental LOW-Tc superconductivity. I agree, although with even more reservations. Not only is the data noisy, but the author claims, that microvolts is "extremely low voltage". This is absolutely rubbish from an experimentalist point of view. It has (obviously from the plots) not been filtered, and the authors claim of a "homebuilt amplifier built on an AD620" is not confidence inspiring. Although the AD620 is not horrible, noise-wise it is used at DC (20 Hz is close enough), which means that 1/f noise will kill his signal no matter what he does. This is especially silly considering, that nothing in the setup should require this low frequency sweeps. Hook up a lock-in amplifier and run ia at a few kHz at least to get decent noise characteristics. Also, all the experimental details of the setup are missing - this alone will get the paper rejected from any peer-reviewed journal. The author might be on to something interesting - superconductivity or not - but the experiment is done like a theorist would, not like an experimental physicist would. Back to the lab, and get some better results - I would love to see this with better measurements. PS: I'm not trying to re-ignite ye olde theorist vs. experimentalist battle, btw - I believe it is possible to be both. Just saying, that the author of this article is not. Seems he has a decent grasp of the theory though, hence my comment to theorists ;-)
          • Re:Of course! (Score:5, Insightful)

            by arachnoprobe ( 945081 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @06:05AM (#33054594)
            I think he knows that his experimental data is crap. The note on the dirtiness of the procedures in the abstracts hints to the fact, that he put out one sample and accidentally found what could be something hyper-interesting. Out of fear of being out-published by someone else, he put out this paper, that - if this is an RT superconductor - he can (rightly) claim having discovered it (leading to wealth and nobel price). Now he can go back an do some proper experiments.
  • by BLToday ( 1777712 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @06:59PM (#33052160)

    until the experiment has been repeated by someone else, I'm not holding any hope.

    • by mark-t ( 151149 )
      I was about to say something similar, but you've expressed it far more concisely (and politely) than I would have.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      I'll second that!

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:15PM (#33052312)

      until the experiment has been repeated by someone else, I'm not holding any hope.

      I tend to agree. This falls into the too good to be true category. Simple materials and a fairly straightforward relatively low tech process to make it reeks of cold fusion. Also showing signs of superconductivity has always been a vague statement and rather noncommittal. Saying that crystal purity didn't seem to be a factor also appears questionable since that would normally be critical to achieving superconductivity. It's a little like saying you just made a 100% efficient photovoltaic cell out of plain ole beach sand. Not real likely.

      • by Nadaka ( 224565 )

        I get that feeling as well. It kind of reminds me about that story about the Indian kid that developed a "revolutionary" new solar panel that will bring cheap electricity to rural India out of human hair.

    • Re: move along now (Score:2, Insightful)

      by deglr6328 ( 150198 )

      Uhhhm no, you don't have to wait for replication. All you have to do is move on to the next story and ignore this stupidity. It's a SINGLE AUTHOR PAPER from some dude at the University of North Bengal, which was reported by a laughably sensationalistic pseudoscience mongering blog and regurgitated here by perhaps the dumbest, most credulous editor on /.'s staff: kdawson (who posts trumpet-blaring room temperature superconductivity stories with such regularity that you could probably set your watch by it). H

      • But kudos for the ringworld reference

      • Re: move along now (Score:5, Interesting)

        by thrawn_aj ( 1073100 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @11:00PM (#33053478)
        Nothing you said is relevant except for the actual paper, which is well written (and doesn't read like a crank - he appears to be fully cognizant of the current state of the field). I've posted (elsewhere on this page) exactly why this conclusion is unlikely (based on a critique of the actual arxiv paper). Further, the author does not claim what the summary here states (another reason to RTFA) - he merely states that it may be an indication of superconductivity in the context of a specific model that was published a while ago (in a mainstream journal). You might want to take a minute to look into it before showing your ignorance with such ludicrous rants.
    • It appears no one (but Slashdot) has commented on it in any way yet. I'm reminded of the "Surfer dude stuns physicists with Theory of Everything" headlines that had scientists so stunned they haven't commented on it in three years...
      • by deglr6328 ( 150198 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:57PM (#33052580)

        Lisi's E8 paper has been cited like 17 times. I'd say that's pretty good and hardly constitutes "no scientists commenting on it in 3 years". It's usually a good bet, but overhyped media publicity doesn't ALWAYS automatically mean someone's work is shit. Lisi's theory makes concrete falsifiable predictions for new particles that will either be confirmed or ruled out using the LHC's dataset.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jfengel ( 409917 )

        The paper got more than the usual attention from the media because of it's charming title and charismatic author, as well as a very attractive accompanying illustration.

        It was nonetheless serious research, and as others have noted has been cited numerous times. It has been kicked around in the usual way of advanced theories, with nothing conclusive either way.

        In the popular press it was really more human-interest story than science story; practically no science writers are even remotely capable of reading

    • This is the perfect material to conduct power generated by cold fusion.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:01PM (#33052174)

    it was Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons that would allow for room tempurature super conduction.

    • It was thousands of micro black holes simultaneously created in a vortex. They annihilate each other in seconds, and collapse a quantum vacuum around the radius of the muon. This lowers the temperature automatically in that region of the molecular assembler, and then it warps space time for a second to super conduct from one part of the crystal matrix to another.

      It's not like a traditional superconductor at all, and that's why it works at room temperature, but only in the tropics.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Kozz ( 7764 )

      it was Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons that would allow for room tempurature super conduction.

      To be honest, I figured that at a minimum, one would have to reroute all secondary power to the deflector shields.

  • ...really? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by linuxgeek64 ( 1246964 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:03PM (#33052192)
    Not peer-reviewed and not published = why the fuck is this on Slashdot?!
  • by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:06PM (#33052224) Journal

    313K is 40C. So this stuff ought to behave just fine in the UK, but only part of the year in India :-) Even in temperate climates, you'd have to be careful not to leave it out in the sun, so again it should be fine in the UK...

    • by JamesP ( 688957 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:15PM (#33052314)

      Reminds me of that joke about scientists in Anchorage discovering a room-temperature superconductor :P

    • by RsG ( 809189 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:31PM (#33052420)

      This is why we prefer the term "high temperature superconductor" over "room temperature". Superconductivity at 313K, if even possible, is still a damn big deal.

      And for a lot of applications, anywhere near ambient temperature is good enough. If the cooling system needed is no more complex than a home AC unit, you've removed the primary drawback/limit on practical superconductors, namely the need for cyrogenic liquids.

      • primary drawback/limit on practical superconductors, namely the need for cyrogenic liquids.

        And even then, sometimes it's worth the cost of refrigeration, if the current is high enough. The same calculation would be done and push cooled power transmission probably out to the last mile, I'd guess. Certainly any big industrial plant with 3-phase would be signing up.

    • by Jerf ( 17166 )

      This website's HTML is dubious, but it has a chart and discussion of ground temperature [vt.edu] despite the focus on Virginia. Ground temperature tends to be fairly steady about thirty feet below the surface. I don't know what soil temperature would be in India but I suspect it would still be below 100 degrees at that point.

      Of course this story is quite likely not true or useful, as other have pointed out. But if we ever do develop room-temperature superconductors, expect them to be buried. Even here in Michigan we

  • Cold Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fartypants ( 120104 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:06PM (#33052226)

    This smells of Cold fusion [wikipedia.org]. I was 12 when that scandal erupted and I'm *still* recovering from the disappointment that we hadn't just entered the age of flying cars. This time I think we're better off saving our excitement until the experiment has been repeated.

    • Sadly true. Peter Hagelstein keeps writing about this in Analog, but they kept mislabeling his stories as "science fact" instead of as a continuing novella.

    • Re:Cold Fusion (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hAckz0r ( 989977 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @09:22PM (#33053026)
      Yes, its best to be sceptical on this one. But I can assure you that Cold Fusion is real, but very hard to reproduce in the Lab and completely working by principals that nobody yet understands. I do work in a Physics Lab, and had the honour of sitting in on a lecture from a well renowned co-worker who explained what we do and do not know about it to date. Its real.

      The unfortunate reality is that *because of the scandal*, and under the current political fallout conditions, it is considered professional suicide to even get evolved with it. Any projects you are working on will immediately become unfunded, even those not directly related to Cold Fusion. The politics are a formidable problem with moving the technology forward, and that is not likely to change any time soon. Someday it will no longer be taboo to work on it, but for now don't hold your breath. Bad politics can kill almost any 'good thing' despite the clear benefits it might possess for the future. Right now the only way it will ever move forward is through private funding.

      • by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @01:36AM (#33053848) Journal
        Ah. Well-renowned scientific co-worker endorses cold fusion. Inside scoop from globally-acclaimed Slashdot science critic hAckzOr.

        "It's real", hAckzor concludes.

        Film at eleven. Take that, scientific establishment.

      • Re:Cold Fusion (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @03:10AM (#33054122)

        Cold Fusion has more than just political problems: it's a matter of energy scales. To overcome the Coulomb barrier between deuterium and tritium, after which the strong interaction takes over, requires an energy of about 4.5 x 10^7 Kelvin. This is the lowest energy fusion reaction. Now imagine how much energy you can get from the strongest chemical reaction. How about thermite: 2500 K, you're still off by four orders of magnitude. That's the main reason why physicists avoid Cold Fusion.

        The current superconductivity article is better, in that the underlying physics is at least plausible, but as a previous poster pointed out, the signal to noise ratio is low, even after smoothing has been applied. Also 4000 Angstroms of deposited Al seems to be somewhat on the thick side for the dielectric to have any effect. But it's certainly worth trying to reproduce the results. (IAAP specializing in superconductivity).

      • Re:Cold Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TheTurtlesMoves ( 1442727 ) on Wednesday July 28, 2010 @04:28AM (#33054314)
        Cold fusion as reported is clearly not real. Either 2 things must be true. That the energy came from D+D->He3+p+T+n in which case the neutron radiation would have killed them both. Or that D+D->He4 +gamma , just about everything in the standard model is completely wrong, observed data from particle physics is wrong, observed data from nuclear testing is wrong, and they would both be dead from gamma radiation.

        They claimed that the power was 1 watt. A number so high that detecting the reaction is totally trivial.. for example if you are in the room for a few hours, you die without a decent piece of shielding.

        The current experiments show some interesting facts too. No one can get any decent signal above the noise, while home built fusors totally destroy cold fusion with easily detectable reaction rates (on the order of 10^6 reaction per second IIRC). Hell even diode tube neutron sources destroy them for reaction rate.
  • The catches (Score:5, Informative)

    by BlueParrot ( 965239 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:10PM (#33052264)

    There has been a number of fraud reports of high temperature superconductivity, and while there are some confirmed examples of superconductivity at very high temperatures ( like -70C ) they usually involve some microscopic crystal or other structure which is not very useful for most practical applications.

    In addition, that something super conducts does not imply it can handle a very large current at high temperatures. The current creates a magnetic field, and superconductors can only work when the magnetic field is less than some fixed value that depends on the material. If I'm not mistaken this value is at its highest when the temperature is very low, and thus it's quite plausible you could get a room temperature superconductor which can't carry any significant current unless cooled to more traditional temperatures.

    • Re:The catches (Score:4, Informative)

      by Mad Bad Rabbit ( 539142 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:23PM (#33052372)

      Even if it had a low critical current, the alleged room-temperature superconductor would be useful for SQUIDs and Josephson junctions.

    • Re:The catches (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bertok ( 226922 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @08:28PM (#33052736)

      Yes, but the small crystals are usually a side-effect of the technique used to find novel superconducting compounds. What some groups do is create polycrystalline lumps where each crystal has a slightly different formula. Then they test resistivity with changing temperature across the whole lot. If just one crystal superconducts, there will be a 'kink' in the graph. This is like a simple brute-force method for testing many samples in parallel, but doesn't necessarily provide a formula that an be produced in bulk.

      It's like a mathematical proof that states that something "must exist" without providing an actual value.

      Also, superconductors are inherently useful irrespective of the current carrying capacity. For example, Josephson Junctions [wikipedia.org] and RSFQ [wikipedia.org] digital electronics are both very useful and require very low power.

      Even a "thin-film" superconductor like the one described in the article would be very useful, as that can be practical for integrated circuitry, even if it's not possible to make a flexible wire out of it.

  • Balogna (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Maury Markowitz ( 452832 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:12PM (#33052288) Homepage

    > The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K.

    Pure copper does the exact same thing.

    I call bogus.

    Maury

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:12PM (#33052290)

    Yes, I see. Something involving that many big words could easily destabilize time itself!

  • Cheap materials, cheap process, room temperature......way too good to be true.

  • by BlackGriffen ( 521856 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:15PM (#33052318)

    How much current can it carry? Superconductors tend to lose superconductivity in the presence of a large magnetic field, limiting the amount of current they can carry. I don't know if the high Tc superconductors are more susceptible than the regular ones, but it's something to keep in mind.

    If they can take a really high magnetic field then that would be really cool for projects like the LHC. A large part of what makes that project dangerous, difficult, and expensive is the large number of He cooled superconducting magnets it needs. The danger comes in when you get a cosmic ray or something that increases the temperature of the magnet so that even a small part loses its superconductivity. When that happens, the non-superconducting part rapidly starts heating up the rest of the magnet in a process called "quenching." The results of a quench can be quite catastrophic.

    • by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @10:25PM (#33053294) Journal

      Superconductors tend to lose superconductivity in the presence of a large magnetic field, limiting the amount of current they can carry.

      Type I yes. Type II no.

      The latter makes current whirlpools that pinch the magnetic field into little quantized columns, which arrange themselves in a hexagonal grid. Superconduction quits in the narrow column where the mag field penetrates, but continues just fine in the rest of the material, dodging around the columns. The field must be very strong to make a lattice of mag field penetrations so dense that they merge and all superconduction crosswise to the mag field quits.

      Not that it matters:

      Superconductors are useful for a LOT of stuff besides carrying power around. Being able to make thin-film superconductor elements with a critical temperature, not just of an air conditioned room, but of a human body with a moderately high fever, would be very useful. (You could keep it cool enough to keep working, even inside a piece of hot equipment on a hot day, with a Peltier junction cooler. No problem.)

  • Is this a joke? Did someone put this paper up to smear someone's reputation? There isn't anything close to good data or analysis there. You can't put that out there.

    Slashdot shouldn't be looking at this, it's embarrassing.

  • Meissner effect? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by AJWM ( 19027 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:27PM (#33052396) Homepage

    Magnetic levitation photos or it didn't happen.

  • by Adrian Lopez ( 2615 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @07:51PM (#33052554) Homepage

    The report is of a possible superconducting effect at ambient room temperatures.

    Amazing! Simply ama...

    Here is the paper on the ArXiv.

    ... Oh.

  • by dr. loser ( 238229 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @08:35PM (#33052774)

    I'm a condensed matter physicist. This claim is weak beyond belief, and it pains me to no end to see it get picked up by slashdot and other sites (nextbigfuture.com). To demonstrate superconductivity, you need to show (a) zero resistance over some range of current; (b) the Meissner effect (expulsion of magnetic flux, seen via magnetometry); (c) a characteristic feature of a phase transition in the heat capacity. This paper shows exactly none of these things. The noise level in the resistance measurements is so poor, you could not tell the difference between zero and 0.01 Ohms (which would be totally believable considering there is already a metal film in the system). This paper in its present form is not fit for publication. Seriously, you don't have to be an expert at this stuff to see that this is weak - just look at the noise level in the current-voltage curves and use some common sense!

    • by bertok ( 226922 )

      Also, they're using a piezoelectric substrate, so there might be resonance effects going on. For example, the sample will shrink as it's cooled, and might go through a size where it exactly resonates with the 20Hz sampling signal they were using.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *

      Seriously, you don't have to be an expert at this stuff to see that this is weak

      Uh, yeah you do. I consider myself to be pretty smart, what with the 160 IQ and the medical degree and all. But superconductors just aren't my field. Put a bunch of words together that don't trigger alarm bells and sound plausible, and I'm a believer. Perhaps you need to take a look in the mirror and realize that you know more about this stuff than the average person. You are certainly more of an expert tha

  • Can we make electric motors with zero friction if we had RTSCs? It would seem that even the best of electric motors need bearings support the main rotating mechanism.

    It would amazing to have giant 5 metre size motors that were completely silent.

  • I'm going to use some of this superconductor in my perpetual motion machine that feeds the cold fusion reactor I'm planning.

  • deposited on a lead zirconate titanate

    Sorry. That violates RoHS regulations.

  • by KonoWatakushi ( 910213 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @09:39PM (#33053092)

    There was also a discovery of a superconducting phase formed at the surface of an N-type diamond substrate six years ago. Since then, Johan Prins has managed to get one paper published in a semiconductor journal, but this work has been almost completely ignored by the scientific community. More disturbingly, to my knowledge, is that there has been no effort to duplicate this astonishing result, nor a single challenge of the experimental method or physics contained within the paper.

    The observed behavior is clearly at odds with the presently accepted superconducting theory, and should be welcomed by any open-minded scientist, or at the very least refuted. The accepted theory not only doesn't fit the data for Type-II superconductors, it is useless in practice, and offers no real insight into the physical phenomenon.

    Since then, he has postulated a new theory of superconductivity, and a new interpretation* of quantum mechanics, both of which look very reasonable from what I have seen. What is more, his theory accurately models both types of superconductors with the same physics, and is useful enough to engineer new superconductors. If the theory does fit the existing data more accurately, this certainly deserves further investigation.

    Though I haven't been able to track down his book, there are chapters of his current and upcoming books here [cathodixx.com]. They at least give insight into his ideas. My crude understanding follows, and I look forward to the completed book.

    The fundamental idea, is that the the wave equation is not a probability distribution of a point particle, but a harmonic wave which represents the mass distribution of the particle, the complex part of which is actually another dimension. There are no particles, only waves, and all are subject to appropriate boundary conditions. The extra dimension also provides a pair of entangled "particles" a mechanism for action at a distance--they are in reality a single wave. Photons are waves without mass, and may entangle with an electron, imparting energy in the process. An interesting point, is that in Kaluza-Klein theory, Einstein's field equations and Maxwell's equations fall out of general relativity, simply by assuming an extra dimension.

    Anyway, as applied to his superconducting discovery, the electrons actually entangle into a single electron wave, and form what he calls an array of orbitals. It is a purely electronic Bose-Einstein condensate, which is stable at room temperature, and where charge moves not by some convoluted electron-pair and phonon interaction, but by a quantum effect, in what is otherwise essentially an insulator. This same array is asserted to form within metals, or within the ceramic superconductors between layers, where there are sufficient donor atoms. All that is required is for the right density of orbitals to form and entangle, and that charge carriers be anchored somewhere, so that they can not undergo acceleration and collisions. (Which is why the best conductors do not superconduct.)

    * the currently accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics is unsatisfying to say the least. The math is useful, but who really believes that wave-particle duality and the statistical interpretation are not a mere mathematical construct, but the foundation of reality? Never once did I believe that, nor did Einstein or Schrödinger, and it is disturbing that people would so easily accept it as fact.

  • by RevWaldo ( 1186281 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2010 @09:59PM (#33053184)
    Three of Earth's most chemically imbalanced heros!

    It's The Manic Maurauder! (POW!)
    The Hyperthymic Huntress! (ZAP!)
    And The Depressed Defender! (Mwah-mwahhh!)

    Using their insanity in a never-ending battle against crime and the forces of evil!

    They're off their meds and on the case! It's The Bipolorons!!

    .

"Pull the trigger and you're garbage." -- Lady Blue

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