Fun With: "Room Temp." Superconductors

[rhoenix]

Ok, this is relatively simple to give the OP of, though I'm hoping to chase its implications as far as possible here.

Scenario: Someone invents a room-temperature superconducting material. It superconducts between 0 and 60 degrees Celsius, but will not do so at any temperature hotter than 60 degrees Celsius.

Question: What new inventions and technologies, both military and not, would open up as a result?



Thank you in advance for your responses.

(EDIT: Clarified OP)

[bobnik]

Metric buttloads of things. The answers to your question depend on a couple of others though;

1. Are your superconductors economically viable? Many of the current crop of high-temp superconductors require rare earth elements and expensive processing.

2. What are the mechanical properties of your material? Again, most of the current superconductors have mechanical properties like ceramics and are hard-to-impossible to make into wires. There are exceptions though.

[rhoenix]

1. Are your superconductors economically viable? Many of the current crop of high-temp superconductors require rare earth elements and expensive processing.

To make superconductors of this mcguffin material, they are currently $50 per ounce of material to make.

2. What are the mechanical properties of your material? Again, most of the current superconductors have mechanical properties like ceramics and are hard-to-impossible to make into wires. There are exceptions though.

Please be more specific as to what you mean by "mechanical properties." Here are additional details, however:

- this material is a variant of a light metal (say, aluminum) that superconducts at the above temperatures when kept under pressure (say, a constant 50psi per square inch).
- this material can be made into wires, but it is currently more expensive to do so, as the wire would have to be kept under constant pressure as well.

[Darth Wong]

To make superconductors of this mcguffin material, they are currently $50 per ounce of material to make.

Gold is something like nine hundred bucks an ounce, and you're talking about a $50/oz room temperature superconductor?

Please be more specific as to what you mean by "mechanical properties." Here are additional details, however:

- this material is a variant of a light metal (say, aluminum) that superconducts at the above temperatures when kept under pressure (say, a constant 50psi per square inch).
- this material can be made into wires, but it is currently more expensive to do so, as the wire would have to be kept under constant pressure as well.

50 psi per square inch? Do you know what "psi" stands for? Assuming you actually mean "50 psi" instead of the utterly meaningless "50 psi per square inch", that's only about 3 bars. You can easily generate that kind of pressure with a cheap-shit air compressor from Home Depot. Your average garden hose running off the municipal water supply will generate at least 60 psi with no modifications.

[rhoenix]

Gold is something like nine hundred bucks an ounce, and you're talking about a $50/oz room temperature superconductor?

In this case, yes. I wanted to bias the scenario toward availability, to better facilitate invention. If $50/oz for this scenario is too unbelievable, I suppose $250/oz would also work.

50 psi per square inch? Do you know what "psi" stands for? Assuming you actually mean "50 psi" instead of the utterly meaningless "50 psi per square inch", that's only about 3 bars. You can easily generate that kind of pressure with a cheap-shit air compressor from Home Depot. Your average garden hose running off the municipal water supply will generate at least 60 psi with no modifications.

This is meant to be one of the "oh shit, that was obvious" sort of discoveries. But, if 50psi seems too unbelievable, then I can go with more. How about 250psi to achieve superconductivity?

[Ford Prefect]

Even $250 an ounce is incredibly cheap for what it is. Darth Wong's gold analogy is appropriate particularly because gold is an excellent conductor and has a number of other properties which makes it favourable for something like electrical contacts. This is room temperature superconductivity. This alone justifies its use even if it costs two or three thousand dollars to produce per ounce. Just up the cost and remove the rather retarded requirement of it being under pressure. It's apparently a light metal, not degenerate matter.

[rhoenix]

Ok, fine then. It costs $5000/oz, and "just works" - no pressure required. It can be made into wires as well with a slightly increased cost.

So - what inventions and possibilities does this open up? What is possible with this discovery?

[Ford Prefect]

Well ... everything which superconductors already do. They have applications in basically anything to do with electromagnetics, such as particle accelerators, magnetometers, maglev trains, coilguns, fusion reactors, digital circuits, power cables, power storage, electrical motors RF/microwave filters for receivers and so on. The biggest triumph when it comes to room temperature superconducters is that they don't have to be cooled to very low temperatures in order to work, which makes them cheaper in the long term. Room temperature superconductivity isn't some sort of gimmicky sci-fi MacGuffin; such a material could potentially revolutionise the way a society even looks at something electric, depending on a number of other factors regarding its material properties which I am not really qualified to explain.

[bobnik]

One of the largest applications for a such a superconductor is large scale electricity distribution, where cooling would be highly impractical, to say the least. Resistive losses are somewhere just over 7% (see here - the wiki has citations) and changing to superconductors would reduce this significantly, and perhaps extend the useful range of a single transmission system. At the price quoted, I doubt electricity companies would rush out to replace their entire distribution system, but I'm sure they would at least consider it for new or upgraded backbone high voltage lines.

Another application may be in quantum computer research. It seems superconductivity may be one of those strange things that happens when quantum physics manifests at the macroscale.

Reading through the wiki, I found that superconducting gyroscopes were used in Gravity Probe B. Perhaps room temperature superconductors may one day be part of a starship's sensors?

[rhoenix]

Alright, I have the basic understanding down, and thank you for that.

Now for the more specific questions:

1. How exactly would "superconductive" armor work? What would it be a defense against, primarily?
2. How much would this superconductive material affect fusion research, and coilgun/railgun designs?
3. How precisely would superconductivity affect quantum computing research?
4. What would superconductor-based sensors be able to look for, and how?

[bobnik]

1. How exactly would "superconductive" armor work? What would it be a defense against, primarily?

Er, so far as I know we're only talking about superconductors of electricity, which isn't used as a weapon that much. My physics is rusty, but I seem to recall most ideas for charged particle weapons will mees you up with the kinetic impact - the fact they're charged is convenient for acceleration purposes, which is one place superconductors would be useful. I assume a well-earthed superconductor systtem would make a good EMP shield, but I don't know that for sure. Most weapon systems, real or imagined, use some form of heat, light or kinetic impact to damage non living materials.

2. How much would this superconductive material affect fusion research, and coilgun/railgun designs?

Superconductors are some of the most powerful electromagnets known, and so it is safe to assume they could have applications in these areas. In fact, the ITER they're building in France will have a superconducting magnet inside.

3. How precisely would superconductivity affect quantum computing research?

Actually that was a WAG on my part, due to the fact that the superconductivity phenomenon appears to be a macroscale quantum one, but it appears SQUIDs are candidates for quantum computing. (apparently along with a bunch of other stuff.) As for how it all works, please come and explain it to me when you figure it out. Quantum physics gives me a headache.

4. What would superconductor-based sensors be able to look for, and how?

Gravity Probe B used superconductive components to measure extremely small gravitic variations. I realise it had to be up there for months to take average readings, but perhaps it points the way. The general idea is that superconductors make excellent magnetometers capable of recording very small variations, not to mention excellent photometers. Read some more about SQUIDs, mentioned above, and you'll see they are used in many very sensitive measuring devices. Seriously, go surf Wikipedia. It explains things better than I can, and the articles surrounding this subject seem well referenced. As with all research, remember Wikipedia is a good place to start, not a good place to finish.