Posted on 05/14/2015 10:48:49 AM PDT by ShadowAce
Unobtainium
In the immortal words of Peter Sellers—”Not Anymore.”
"I like it."
Turbinium
Slightly confused here.... aren’t insulators used to separate conductors? What good is a material that conducts, as an insulator?
“Slightly confused here.... aren’t insulators used to separate conductors? What good is a material that conducts, as an insulator?”
“It goes far beyond what ordinary matter can do”
Not sure how, myself. They seem opposite properties to me.
“Slightly confused here.... aren’t insulators used to separate conductors? What good is a material that conducts, as an insulator?”
Think of a switch. When off, the air insulates the lightbulb from the voltage.
When on, it conducts.
Now think of semi-conductors. Normally insulates but with an applied voltage, become ‘switch on’.
Now think of a ‘wire’ that is an insulator that when pressure is applied becomes ‘switched on’.
Only now that ‘wire’ is a superconducting wire!
“that this new state of matter does both at the same time.”
Not at the same time. But the matter will transition from insulator to conductor.
ahh—that makes more sense
It slices, it dices, and it makes Julienne fries!
Insulators are used to physically separate conductors. At what point do you want your insulator to become a conductor, and short out all that it protects?
Still confused!
Insulators stop electricity. Conductors make electricity flow. On and off. Ones and zeroes. Computers.
The Motherboard link has the crux:
“What’s weird about Jehn-Teller metals is that so far we really have no idea what causes the electrons within them to pair up. In a conventional superconductor, they do it because they’re swapping phonons, which are excitations (”quasiparticles”) found within the molecular lattice of some material, and the effect is attraction. Again, this takes extremely cold temperatures.
If Jehn-Teller metals involve some other electron pairing mechanism, that might mean the possibility of superconductivity occurring at not-so-cold temperatures. Researchers just have to figure out what that other mechanism is...”
So: it possibly exhibits a new mechanism for superconductivity.
Did you not understand the analogy of the switch?
Insulator == OFF.
Conductor == ON.
Think!
Mechanical switches transition from insulators to conductors!
Vacuum tubes transition from insulators to conductors!
Transistors transition from insulators to conductors!
Buckyballs! Of course! And here I was trying to get the same result with traditional Jarts.
I knew, I knew it. The Salad Shooter is back!!
They finally found a use for that warehouse full of them.
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