Slashdot Mirror
New Superconductor World Record Surpasses 250K
myrrdyn writes to tell us that a new superconductivity record high of 254 Kelvin (-19C, -2F) has been recorded. According to the article this is the first time a superconductive state has been observed at a temperature comparable to a household freezer. "This achievement was accomplished by combining two previously successful structure types: the upper part of a 9212/2212C and the lower part of a 1223. The chemical elements remain the same as those used in the 242K material announced in May 2009. The host compound has the formula (Tl4Ba)Ba2Ca2Cu7Oy and is believed to attain 254K superconductivity when a 9223 structure forms"
Wow. I'll bet the guys at Cern are feeling pretty foolish right about now.
No, "high temperature" superconductors cannot be used in magnets. That's why they're using liquid helium (or was it liquid hydrogen?) instead of the much cheaper liquid nitrogen -- all the superconductors that work at the warmer liquid nitrogen temperatures will stop working in a moderately strong magnetic field.
You want me to believe a wildly high superconductor Tc claim using a link to a shady website that looks like it was designed in 1996, without any link to a paper or an author, without any reference to where the discovery was made, without any notes about secondary confirmation, without any other reference in the media except one lamo blog and without any real formal publication at all? Here's what every physicist reading this article right now is thinking: STFU. If you get a near room temp Tc superconductor working, you better be on the front page of a rushed to print edition of Nature that someone just ran down the hall to shove in my hand, or I'm not even going to give you the time of day.
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
Where's the bullshit tag?
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
It it wasn't obvious before, this "no patents" sentence should have made it obvious to you that the guy is a crackpot. This guy is making materials with Tc 100K higher than the rest of the world and he publishes on his own website instead of Nature and Science? Come on -- if any of his previously claimed discoveries had any grain of truth in them he'd have won an immediate Nobel prize; this would be far more important than the CCD.
You seem to know what you're talking about, care to clue the rest of us in as to whether the link is at all plausible? Given the nature of the source, I have difficulty believing so.
depends on the power generation source. If we can make a stable fusion system that fails safe then yes. Pebble bed fission isn't bad. in fact on or two per 1 million people would stabilize the power grid.
The big problem with the power grid is that it is a really simple target. The 2003 blackout of the north east USA, was testament to the fact that one little screw up and the whole thing shuts down in beautiful cascading failures. a targeted set of attacks at key points at the right time of the year could kill millions with only a handful of targets. and I am not talking about destroying any nuclear plant, just the right transmission towers in the right sequence and suddenly the north east of the USA, some 40 million people are without heat and electricity for a month. Target for a second attack for the north west, shortly afterwards, and then rolling blackouts in the south and no one will be able to fix it for a year. 20 maybe 30 bombs around the country and the USA is worthless for the next couple of years.
partial local generation is the only viable long term solution to our future power needs. Big plants will be needed, but small plants will save lives. Even partial solar and wind generation in each region would be enough to help.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.