Development on Superconductors

In the past, one of the biggest problems with the uptake of superconductors was the point that they required incredibly low temperatures in tack together for them to act upon. In the late 1980's, however, investigateers began finding shipway to make them proceed at higher temperatures. This sunrise(prenominal) development is making superconductors less(prenominal) expensive and more practical than ever before. It is for this reason that the scientific community is excited more or less the future potential of superconductors.

The offset superconductors date back to the early twentieth century and the research of the Dutch scientist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes. In 1911, Onnes took a piece of hydrargyrum equip and chilled it to an extremely low temperature with the use of liquid helium. Onnes received an unpredicted surprise when he found that there was absolutely no resistance when he ran an galvanic current through the wire (2:10). Onnes named his disco very(prenominal) "superconductivity," and he received a Nobel Prize for his work in 1913. The temperature at which Onnes obtained his result was incredibly low. In guild to describe that temperature, Onnes used the Kelvin surmount. According to the Kelvin scale, 0 degrees K is equivalent to "absolute zero" (no heat at all). This is approximately the same as -460 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale (2:7). According to the Kelvin scale, the freezing point of water is about 273 K. The temperature at which Onnes found no resistance in his mercury wire was a

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disdain the advantages of high temperature superconductivity, there are still problems with it which limit its applicability at this time.

Two much(prenominal) problems raft be seen in this quote from a Scientific American article: "Superconductivity ceases if the cloth is overloaded with electric current or is placed in a strong magnetic field" (4:28). A trinity problem can be seen in the difficulties of "shaping the slender materials into durable objects - especially long, flexible wires" (3:1078). All three of these problems essential be solved before superconductors can be begin genuinely useful. For example, superconductivity is clearly not practical unless its non-resistant current can be sent through wires. The difficulty with this lies in the fact that the ceramic materials in the new superconductors are not very flexible. In addition, superconductors need to be able to receive an up to(predicate) amount of current if they are to be used for such practical purposes as powering motors or electromagnets (3:1079). Furthermore, scientists need to develop ways for superconductors to be free from magnetic fields which increase electrical resistance and thus undermine the benefits which are supposed to come from superconductivity.

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