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Red Wine and the Secret of Superconductivity
cold fjord writes "Red wine is a popular marinade for meat, but it also may become a popular treatment for creating iron-based superconductors as well (Link to academic paper): 'Last year, a group of Japanese physicists grabbed headlines around the world by announcing that they could induce superconductivity in a sample of iron telluride by soaking it in red wine. They found that other alcoholic drinks also worked — white wine, beer, sake and so on — but red wine was by far the best. The question, of course, is why. What is it about red wine that does the trick? Today, these guys provide an answer — at least in part. Keita Deguchi at the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, and a few buddies, say the mystery ingredient is tartaric acid and have the experimental data to show that it plays an important role in the process. ... It turns out the best performer is a wine made from the gamay grape — for the connoisseurs, that's a 2009 Beajoulais from the Paul Beaudet winery in central France.'"
Alcohol -> less resistance.
And we needed scientists to figure this out... why?
That's why Bender drinks. To keep the superconductors flowing.
I thought the alcohol was fuel.
This is just a cover for their excessive spending of their research grant on booze.
Some people are just walking talking superconductors then.
You can't handle the truth.
I mean, does it have chemical properties that have confounded the best minds? Er.. the best minds with a grant to buy wine, that is? No, kidding, but wikipedia says Tartaric acid in grapes,etc also played a role in the discovery of chirality, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartaric_acid). And, in the grocery store the SO, i wondered about what cream of tartar really was... To wit: I know what my next grant proposal should be!
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
In light of this discovery, imagine if the Prohibition had stuck and became global. And imagine what we could accomplish if the researchers were free to soak the wires in LSD and tires in cannabis solutions? We could have free energy and flying cars, because the laws of physics are like, whatever man.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Better and easier ways to make superconductors? I'll drink to that. Skål! Maljanne! Cheers! Zum Wohl! Prosit! Santé! Salud!
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I think that explains why my brain seems to go faster after 1-2 bottles.
I'm glad to hear a 2009 Beaujolais is good for something.
The correct line is, "Back off man, I'm a scientist."
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
By far, the more interesting question about this discovery is what kind of reasoning brought these researchers to dip their samples in wine and test if superconductivity would emerge? Did they try some other random stuff from tap water to fluorhydric acid via a collection of leftover drinks they had in the closet, or does this experiment proceed from some well formed theoretical background ?
So THAT's what "pièce de résistance" means!
It's not often you find a red wine that goes well with fish and can reduce electrical resistance.
(I wish I could find it on the web, but it reminds me of an old Shoe comic reviewing a wine where the writer says, "It's not often you find a wine that goes well with your dinner and you can burn in your furnace.")
This wasnt supposed to be public before next saturday...
do we get electrocuted easier?
No, we just get really really good at leading orchestras. At least, we think we do,
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
How did they discover this?
Its truly hard to think of a reason why they would soak a piece of iron telluride in red wine and then decide to test its superconductivity.
WTF were they doing?