There's something odd about this announcement. It's a bit odd to call something a "zero resistance superconductor" because all superconductors have zero resistance. "Negative resistance" is an odd phrase. There's negative differential resistance, but that happens outside of the superconducting state. Another press release described it as no resistance at negative 269C, which is about 4K, which isn't all that warm, and definitely not room-temperature (269K isn't room temperature either, but is a phenomenal jump from the previous high temp record for superconducting). Of course 269C is way above room temperature, which would be pretty odd too. Perhaps the truth is that the researcher has discovered malleable superconductors (because of the reference to wires and iron) at 4K. That may be a step forward but then the headline isn't correct. I'm wondering if this came from some sort of automatic translation? Otherwise it's pretty odd and the differences in the other press releases are pretty strange too.

The article says the researcher is trying to replace the phosphorous with arsenic, but the university of Tokyo announced earlier this year discovery of a "anthanum oxygen fluorine iron arsenide" that superconducts up to 26K, which sounds like they've already stabilized an iron/arsenic compound. The latest record I heard of was superconductivity at 55K

It's also odd to describe something like this as "devastating" -- it would actually be awesome!

i hope you mean -269 C, or 4 degrees above absolute 0

What would having room temperature superconducting do for the world?

Room temp super conductors would revolutionize the power grids in the world. Imagine L.A. without brownouts because solar panels in the eastern US and wind in denmark and tidal generated power from Russia would all be available at the same time. (Which would take quite a bit of political agreemnt) But that's just the beginning.
Power transmission without any loss. Even in processors and computers, transistors, capacitors, anything electrical , except light bulbs as they require resistance.

It would be one of the most important breakthroughs to daily living.

Sorry, but if something has a negative resistance, doesn't that mean it's producing power? I thought we were talking about zero resistance and no power loss?

Imagine the day when V/I doesn't equal R...in some cases!

"Well technically, R=V/I is primarily applicable to standard laws of physics. With something super crazy like a superconductor, V/I must equal 0, which would be quite a strange occurrence. However, with a material like Graphine, the laws of Quantum Physics begin to apply for no real good reason whatsoever."

-My attempt at pulling pseudo-scientific explanations out of my magic hat

That makes absolutely no sense. I think you meant to say "zero resistance at negative 269º Celsius." The temperature you stated is well over 500º Fahrenheit!

The Resistance would equal zero. As in zero resistance semi conductor. To have negative resistance doesn't make any sense. I like the Electrical theory Frozenlead. You sir, get a +1

Ah V/I !=r dose happen in some cases , it called a non ohmic device, such as a diode along with many other devices. Yeah this article is riddle with error though negative resistance would be quite a trick would go along with a perpetual motion machine too.

Also...500 Fahrenheit you wouldn't have to worry about cooling because anyone in the room would be dead and I'm sure nothing else would survive those temps either. Zero resistance so no heat but the article said "at 269 C". So 516 degrees F would absolutely make the zero resistance pointless. I love articles that don't make sense. Please tell me, what does proofreading mean?

I am curious, would it be possible to teach a complete layman physics, quantum physics, and theoretical physics? Assuming this layman is 25, by what age would he have learned enough to contribute to any one of those fields assuming an educational starting point of...hmm...college algebra? Also, would it be possible to do so without taking any college classes...maybe at the library or online?

Chuck

Please answer, i really am curious

The answer to your question is no.

Quantum and theoretical would require more math. At a minimum of a firm grounding in calculus is needed. Linear algebra, differential equations and complex analysis would also be helpful.

As for layman physics, there are lots you can learn that from almost any introductory physics text. For quantum I would recommend Into to Quantum Mechanics by David Griffiths. For classical I would recommend Classical Mechanics by John Taylor. Both of these book will assume calculus based understanding of layman physics.

To get to a point where you can contribute to the field...hard to say.
Generally one can go from high school physics to PhD in about 10 years.

Yes. But can he cook an omelette with it?

In fact, yes. But that layman needs to start studying during high-school. The physics given at the university isn't different from the one taught at high-school. Just a little more detail.

This must be spelling mistake - probably the temperature is 269F, which is around 0 Celsius - that would be something...

Spelling mistake probably this way: instead of 269C it should be 269K: approximately -4C which really makes sense now.

There are plenty of good layman's books regarding the implications of quantum theory, but the actually theory itself is much more rigorously mathematical than conceptual. You need to go far beyond calculus to get the mathematical language to understand it. At a minimum, just to understand the Schrodinger equation, which is the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, you need to know how to work with partial differential equations, eigenvalues from linear algebra, wave functions from mid-level physics courses, and taylor series expansions, to name a few. The worst part about it is that quantum mechanics don't work the same way that physics you deal with in your everyday life does. It becomes harder to visualize because it doesn't jive well with the reality you see. Unless you are a genius, It's unlikely you will explain all of this to yourself without help. Most people spend 8 years in school being told how to think about it and they still never contribute significantly to the field.

Let me help everyone with a better summary of this topic: Some superconductor thingy or something happened in Japan or something. Some kind of metric temperatures are involved and some of those element thingys too. Its phenomenal and devastating and I would add more, but I left my thesaurus at home, so I can't add any more cool but irrelevant adjectives to pad out this article.

Looks like it should say -269C, which is 4K. Kind of a big typo. I think the big discovery here is the simplicity of the metal. Doing a quick google search shows that they have LaOFeAs-based materials that are superconductive to 26K. (Nature 2008Apr23)

http://www.itexaminer.com/boffin-d [...] uctor.aspx

Incredible how terrible this article is written! I hope they revise & correct all of the errors.

I thought we only lost about 7.5% of juice on the line on average. I'd call Tesla and AC + high voltage a revolution... this would just be an evolutionary gain, at massive costs unless they just used it in new installations. At least as far as general transmission. How this might effect internal components of say a PC I have no idea, maybe less heat and more reliable juice would certainly help.

This discovery has no bearing at all on high-temperature superconductors. Its unfortunate that the author of the article apparently misread -269C as 269C. Maybe the author comes from deep space.

Well, at -269C we would all get frozen solid.
Maybe they can create a case for it that includes an ice maker. You don't need to know quantum physics to know that the power required to cool the thing would be far more than any power saved with the 0 resistances.

In in April, Kamihara and others reported (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/abs/nature06972.html) achievement of superconductivity in an iron layered complex at 43 degrees K, (230 degrees below zero, Celsius) minus that is, at a temperature 39 degrees warmer than that reported in Tom's Hardware.

Actually, Ht super conductors would make a quantum leap of ALL things electric/electronic. Something that could operate in the room-temp to relatively hot temp (100 C & up) would be awesome...but 4 now it's just a fantasy.

-4 Celsius doesn't make sense.. although thats cold, i doubt its cold enough to really allow superconducting, yet anyway
its prolyl -269celsius, as you can see, he spelled out Celsius which gives less chance the author accidentally but a C for a K

Currently what they do for the superconducting magnets for the MRI machines is cool down first with nitrogen to a certain degree (can’t remember) then follow up with liquid helium for cost reasons (liquid helium is expensive) down to 4K. I think what this article is really showing is that they can make a superconductor without the use of copper. The cost of this wire is substantial already and makes the costs of the MRI machines go up very quickly in terms of every mm larger the id of the MRI machine is. I think that what this article is showing an alternative strain of wire that is not based off of copper but has the same application (4K) in terms of cooling. I engineer the heat exchangers for the MRI machines so am fairly privy to the processing and use of this product.

This technology will never be accepted as the high temperatures will contribute to global warming. Cya!

This deeply offends me on a personal level.

That someone could write an article about this that is just blantly igorant of any scientific understanding whatsover is disappointing. To spread this filth that some layman might find as being new research is equally atrocious.

The headline is the just the beginning of where this article gets messed up. Scientists discovered superconductivity in 1911. It is not a mystery anymore, and it does not need to be created. By definition, it is zero resistivity (and its non-Ohmic). However, as resistance is related to resistivity only by how much of the material you have (ie, a 6m copper wire has more resistance than a 1m copper wire, same gauge), it is effectively the same to say that zero resistivity is zero resistance.

Beyond this, we've all seen how horrificly the contents are written. Typos all over the place, and nonsensical psuedo-science babble obviously obtained from sci-fi (hey, you know that means Science FICTION, right? as in *NOT* real!).

I propose then, that TH remove this article pending editing. Failure to do that should be mitigated by the prompt firing of the author, and the replacement of said author with an intelligent human being.