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Did A US Navy Scientist Just Invent A Room-Temperature Superconductor? (phys.org)
"A scientist working for the U.S. Navy has filed for a patent on a room-temperature superconductor, representing a potential paradigm shift in energy transmission and computer systems," reports Phys.org:
Salvatore Cezar Pais is listed as the inventor on the Navy's patent application made public by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday. The application claims that a room-temperature superconductor can be built using a wire with an insulator core and an aluminum PZT (lead zirconate titanate) coating deposited by vacuum evaporation with a thickness of the London penetration depth and polarized after deposition.
An electromagnetic coil is circumferentially positioned around the coating such that when the coil is activated with a pulsed current, a non-linear vibration is induced, enabling room temperature superconductivity. "This concept enables the transmission of electrical power without any losses and exhibits optimal thermal management (no heat dissipation)," according to the patent document, "which leads to the design and development of novel energy generation and harvesting devices with enormous benefits to civilization."
Long-time Slashdot reader resistant writes: NextBigFuture says the same individual appears to have made other startling claims that arguably stretch the boundaries of belief, such as a "high-frequency gravitational wave generator" that could supposedly drive a spaceship without conventional propellants as well as an "inertial mass reduction device." Prudence would appear to dictate examining these and other claims by Mr. Salvatore Cezar Pais with great caution.
An electromagnetic coil is circumferentially positioned around the coating such that when the coil is activated with a pulsed current, a non-linear vibration is induced, enabling room temperature superconductivity. "This concept enables the transmission of electrical power without any losses and exhibits optimal thermal management (no heat dissipation)," according to the patent document, "which leads to the design and development of novel energy generation and harvesting devices with enormous benefits to civilization."
Long-time Slashdot reader resistant writes: NextBigFuture says the same individual appears to have made other startling claims that arguably stretch the boundaries of belief, such as a "high-frequency gravitational wave generator" that could supposedly drive a spaceship without conventional propellants as well as an "inertial mass reduction device." Prudence would appear to dictate examining these and other claims by Mr. Salvatore Cezar Pais with great caution.
"high-frequency gravitational wave generator"
So, basically, no. Sounds like a crank.
Nope. They invented it years ago and kept it a secret.
If this guy wants to be taken seriously then he needs to publish a paper that describes the science and the methods thoroughly enough that other scientists can design (an) experiment(s) to confirm the validity. 'Patents' mean nothing. 'Demonstrations' don't mean shit either. Repeatable and explainable by others independently is the only thing that counts.
I agree, so the question is - does the patent give enough information for others to reproduce the result he claims?
Also you would think, if he does have this working is the Navy planning to make use of this in some way? Seems like a word from them on adoption (they don't have to be specific) would go a long way to back his claims.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apart from the fact that this is likely total BS: let's imagine it does actually work the way it is described here in the summary: You need to pulse an electromagnetic field around the wire to induce this effect. The coil is not going to be superconducting (how could it be, it's needed to induce the effect), but is going to be made of regular wires, so they will dissipate heat for the time this is in operation. And while superconductors don't have any resistance, they do have a maximum current they can carry before they stop becoming superconducting, and I have a hard time imagining that a wire this thin is going to be able to carry a current larger than the one needed to create the magnetic pulses - especially if this is a non-linear effect. (Non-linear non-trivial magnetic effects typically need quite a large magnetic field, hence a large current through the coil.)
Basically this means that you'd need a large current in the magnetic coil (which is dissipated) to be able to transmit a smaller current without dissipation. Congratulations, you've spent a lot more energy and money for energy transmission than just laying down a nice copper wire and sending the current through it directly.
Also, since magnetics are involved in creating this effect, this will be useless for one of the primary applications of superconductivity outside of current transport: creating very strong magnetic fields, for example in MRI machines. Because the magnetic fields required for creating the superconductivity would probably need to be much stronger than the fields the superconducting wire could create by itself - and if you already have a good magnet, why not use it directly?
The only useful thing that could come out of this, were it real, would be a better understanding of how superconductivity works, especially at high temperatures, so that in the long term we might be able to actually build a more useful room-temperature superconductor. But that'd be something you'd publish in a reputable condensed matter physics journal, where there is proper peer review, instead of filing for a patent where the reviewer is likely not an expert in the fields required to evaluate this. So, as a lot of other people have said, likely complete BS.