Superconductors

Thread Starter

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,798
Mass implies matter, or particles. The only particle I know of that still allows for a vacuum is photons, otherwise it isn't a vacuum. Space, even relatively near earth, is a high vacuum. I've worked on equipment on earth that uses both roughing and high vacuums. Vacuum by definition is absence of matter. That means no electrons, protons, deuterium, etc. If they are present it isn't a vacuum.

Like I said before Electron Volts is a measurement of energy. One electron volt is equal to 1.60217653(14)×10−19 Joules. It is equivalent to say a unit of space has a watt of energy. The unit of measurement isn't as important as the concept. How can a vacuum contain energy? It seems simple until you start thinking it through.

There is one interesting catch in my personal debate, the original statement was talking about temperature, not heat. Heat is an energy unit, just like Joules. Temperature is a unit similar to that of pressure. So how can a vacuum have a temperature, other than photons that is?
 
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magnet18

Joined Dec 22, 2010
1,227
Temperature is a measure of average kinetic energy, which is heat, which is energy.
It's all the same.

Theres no doubt that the wiki article writer was confused, it is impossible to heat a vacuum. However, if you have a vacuum, and accelerate particles through it at relativistic speeds, which would have a "temperature" of billions of degrees (which would only be used to sound impressive), it could be considered a superconductor, depending on how you define the word.
 

sceadwian

Joined Jun 1, 2009
499
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy

The ability to interact with energy from a vacuum is scientifically verified via the perceived forces observed in the article. These forces are real and a direct verification of vacuum energy. When nothing is there, quantum speaking something is still there and it can under some circumstances interact with what is observably there.

The Casimir effect is probably the most direct proof of vacuum energy.
 

Thread Starter

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,798
OK, but that still doesn't answer how a vacuum can store energy. I am familiar with vacuum energy, but I don't think it pertains. What medium would excite vacuum energy? So far the only medium I can think of is photons.
 

magnet18

Joined Dec 22, 2010
1,227
magnetic flux?
which would go back to the fields thing, which goes to the accelerating of particles (electrons), which goes back to my previous posts.
 

Thread Starter

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,798
With quantum foam, where antiparticle and particles are equal, they null each other out. They can only be detected via specialized experiments. But electrons are a form of matter, incomplete by out standards, but matter non the less. If this is a high vacuum they will not exist. This is the point I keep making, in a hard true vacuum the only particles that do not interfere with the definition of a vacuum is photons.

If you can think of another particle that fits this definition I would be interested in hearing about it.

Electrons do a lot of specialized jobs for electronics in a vacuum. Tubes, sputtering machines, vapor disposition, and more.
 

sceadwian

Joined Jun 1, 2009
499
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

Shed any light for you Bill? The key to manipulation of the energy is the structure of what it can effect. That's what the bulk of nano materials encompass'. Much like your sodium hydrogen link, sure it's valid science, make it practical. This has ALWAYS been the Achilles' heel of super conductors, practicality. You claim small gains, but it's still grabbing after the same straws if you can't make anything practical out of it.

We can not currently make use of the known effects that have been discovered by science on a scale sufficient enough to make them practical for large scale dispersal, or even development, for the bulk of all known fundamental principles, other than very common ones.

The biggest contenders for super conductors currently are for medical and science imaging and control applications, meaning the current best use for a super conductor is only in understanding more about super conductors or avoiding irradiating people with known ionic radiation sources. Both good aims, but for practical broad reaching application of super conductors in the real world, we're still lifetimes away.
 
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Thread Starter

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,798
Like I said (if you were reading) I understand the Casmir effect, in so much as anyone can. I notice you didn't mention the interaction between photons and it, which is what I needed, and are commenting way to late for it to be useful.

In case you haven't noticed, temperatures for impractical configurations have been recorded much higher than you want to acknowledge for superconductors.

I keep saying this, and you keep ignoring it, but literally billions of dollars are being spent and the phenomena is being researched by people I am fairly confident are much smarter than either one of us. But in your certainty you can not be wrong. Give it time, it will tell either way.
 

sceadwian

Joined Jun 1, 2009
499
I'm ignoring nothing. My precept from the start was PRACTICALITY.
For this type of research there is none. Give it unlimited time, give it unlimited money... Sure... Give it another 20 years =) I will GLADLY eat my shorts if I'm wrong. I don't see it happening within my lifetime though.

Wish hope, the future, see past the now. But never forget where we're at.
 

Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
I am most encouraged to see that there are more exotic physical effects being looked into. Whether there is any easily foreseeable route to commercial applications is another matter, but the mere fact that they exist gives room for hope that more interesting developments may be forthcoming in future.

Recently (at least in this country) there has been something of a fashion for saying that man is running out of possible new ideas. Possibly this links into nihilistic tendencies of thought brought on by our current economic woes, and the rise of Eastern countries seen mainly as copiers, not originators.

It seems more likely to me that after a period of retrenchment some major new fields will open. The connection between them and some of the new physics curiosities may be no more obvious than that between the Edison Effect and the IPod. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermionic_emission
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,333
The creation of room temperature superconductors with high critical current and magnetic fields will create a new field of zero-loss energy transport. You should easily be able to store energy with the same density as gasoline. Without expensive refrigeration units scaling the units to human portable size would be possible.
Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage

As usual there is a down side, it's possible to increase the current density to be greater than a chemical explosive in a very small package.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
16,333
It seems more likely to me that after a period of retrenchment some major new fields will open. The connection between them and some of the new physics curiosities may be no more obvious than that between the Edison Effect and the IPod. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermionic_emission
Thermionic emissions create most of the semiconductors inside the the IPOD. Tools that are at their hearts "big vacuum tubes" move ions and electrons in very precise amounts and position them in very precise locations at every fab in the world 7/24.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crLDt7KQuxc&feature=related
 

Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
So once his superconducting car battery is all charged up, all the mad bomber has to do is get it a little too hot. As it approaches critical temperature, losses kick in...

Oh dear.
 

Adjuster

Joined Dec 26, 2010
2,148
Thermionic emissions create most of the semiconductors inside the the IPOD. Tools that are at their hearts "big vacuum tubes" move ions and electrons in very precise amounts and position them in very precise locations at every fab in the world 7/24.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crLDt7KQuxc&feature=related
Quite so. I doubt whether many people hearing of Edison's work in the 1880s could have imagined the sort of gadgets we now have, especially since his work was aimed at improving lamp bulbs. The valves / tubes that began the story of electronics were not foreseen at that time.

It is interesting to note that some inventions result from head-on research aimed at a given goal, while others are serendipitous. A famous pharmaceutical company once developed a heart medicine, which did indeed put new heart into some of the patients whom it was tested on, but not quite in the way they had anticipated. They then made millions by selling it for its potent side effects.
 

Thread Starter

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,798
I've thought for a long time that a superconducting discharge device would make a rather nice EMP bomb. Hope that's all it does.

There is a concept in SciFi (based on reality) called the singularity. It is based on the fact that knowledge for humans is growing exponentially. At some point in the not so far off future we will accumulate knowledge faster than we can process it. We live in interesting times, both in the Chinese sense and other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

The article has changed radically since I last accessed it, I think the old one was better.
 
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