>> ^MycroftHomlz:

How do you mean? The Miessner effect is purely quantum mechanical, in that, there is no classical mechanics analog for this behavior. And you need wave functions to explain the physics at all. If you want to understand it you can read Yip and Sauls paper...
>> ^westy:
No more or less Quantum than anything else



My point was that ultimately everything is quantum.

This only seems more Quantum on the face of it because its a counter intuitive behivoir at a human scale.

I think there could probably be a better way to describe it such as "magnetic Super conductor Wipe out" , "Magnetic levitation wipe out " , " super conductor levitation track" in this case the word quantum just seems to be used as gimmic / buzz word.

Still if it gets people to read into science and makes them exited about it cnt really complane

>> ^BoneyD:

How much load can be exerted on a mass that is 'locked' in place like that?
i.e. Could this be a way to make super sweet hover bikes and cars a reality??


For the demonstration, not much imo. The guy had no difficulty adjust the 'locked' item with his hand, which can't be exerting a terrible amount of force.

Scaling up in size is another matter (and totally outside my area of simple deductive logic ; ), I would imagine as your super conductor blocks get bigger you could indeed support much higher weights.

It's interesting though, I wonder how a train, for example, would go around corners? Would the track need to be curved, as the superconductor is locked in a certain aspect to the track ie. like a toboggan? At the serious speeds an air friction only train could travel at, not tilting in to relative shallow corners might cause some serious in cabin 'passenger migration' issues if the train didn't lean in to the corner. *grin*

But yeah, that is some cool (no bad pun intended) shit right there.

>> ^charliem:
= CERN invented the internet, they invented MRI, they invented the concentrated x-ray for blasting cancer sites, they invented super conductors, as Brian mentioned, they've also come up with a new method of cooling, they've even invented and built a brand new parallel internet with massive capacity and the ability to have distributed processing / applications running over it (google "The GRID - CERN"), they invented the integrated circuit, the transistor (and as a result, PLENTY of other complex digital structures)...


CERN:

1)invented the internet. False, invented at MIT. Though it is true, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet

2) they invented MRI. False, it was invented at Stony Brook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_resonance_imaging

3) they invented the concentrated x-ray for blasting cancer sites.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_Hounsfield

4) they invented super conductors. False, discovered by Onnes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heike_Kamerlingh_Onnes

I don't have the time to debunk all of this. Most it is wrong, half truths, or misguided.
Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN is where you can see there accomplishments.

The line for scientific research should never be drawn, not ever.
Look what happened in the arab world when the ruling class at the time around 500 AD decided that questioning the unknown is encroaching on gods doorstep, essentially drawing a line in the sand and saying "no more research, what you don't know now, you never will, cause it doesn't suit our needs".

How many nobel laureates are from the mid-east ?

1...and he shares it with a british fellow.

Seriously, there should never be any kind of discussion where drawing a line in the sand is ever a consideration for research, ever.

CERN invented the internet, they invented MRI, they invented the concentrated x-ray for blasting cancer sites, they invented super conductors, as Brian mentioned, they've also come up with a new method of cooling, they've even invented and built a brand new parallel internet with massive capacity and the ability to have distributed processing / applications running over it (google "The GRID - CERN"), they invented the integrated circuit, the transistor (and as a result, PLENTY of other complex digital structures)...

ALL of those technologies came as a result of EXPLORATION DRIVEN SCIENCE, where noone doing the research at the time had any kind of insight as to what might come of it.

You cant simply sit there and claim that exploration driven science should be stopped because it costs too much, AND you cant foresee its benefits, that's just a failing on your imagination, not on the scientific process.

As much as I admire the older chap for his position within the british academia, it is people with attitudes like him that enable the idiots of this world to hang shit on people with a passion for understanding how it all works.

Once you start saying "maybe thats a bit too far", you open the door for a lot more, just look at what Bush has done to the credibility of scientific reporting by essentially removing the ability for the scientists to report their findings without running it through the "washington filter" first....a disaster.

'shroomy, I had missed your "science" comment before. cold does not make things float. in fact almost every substance contracts when colder. (same weight & smaller volume means what?) so colder means more dense, and most things would sink when colder.

The oddity of water is that it expands when frozen. So it actually floats as ice. And yes, there is ice at the north pole, a lot more in antarctica. (Soon to be a year round unfrozen sea in the artic circle though, so you keep-on keeping on with your global warming is a myth story.) It's as solid as your grasp of science.




---------
no, it is a super-conductor.

most semi-conductors couldn't generate the kind of EM fields this does. the question is at what temperature can you make a material act like this, so this one is relatively high temp, liquid nitrogen (77K). It's probably an exotic material like Yttrium-Barium-Copper Oxide (Note the resistance goes down to zero).

Semiconductors are what make computers possible. Silicon and III-V materials are used because you can either make the device conduct electrons by applying a voltage, or it doesn't conduct when there is no voltage. That makes a possible 0's and 1's... and Intel Processors when you put a couple million of those devices (switches) together.

sg, did you put "saved" in the tags, or was that automatic? Hmm... I assume it was you?

Hmm... and now I can't vote. How odd. Looks like it needs a save first.

As for explanation, the item becomes a super conductor only when cold. The meta-cafe page has some understandable explanations: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/55826/who_can_explain_this/

The goal of scientists is to create superconductors (i.e., no friction!) that work at higher temperatures, so that they can be used in more practical applications.