although barium can be used as a poison (when mixed with water or acid). There are a lot of other man made products that use barium. Such as spark plugs, batteries, superconductors, dyes, vacuum tubes, florescent lights, bricks, rubber, glass, medicine and in manufacturing processes. Sounds like pollution to me. I don't see how the government fits into this.

The Meissner effect is the total exclusion of any magnetic flux from the interior of a superconductor, this happens here because of the introduction of nitrogen....


This is wrong.

I actually work on superconductors. I think someone already posted the wikipedia article, so I don't know if you still want an explanation, but I can give you a pretty basic one. Let me know if you are game or if you think you got it.

I love the way superconductors levitate something at the same time they keep it from falling off. Seems like magic

The Meissner effect is the total exclusion of any magnetic flux from the interior of a superconductor, this happens here because of the introduction of nitrogen decaying the magnetic field to zero and producing perfect diamagnetism allowing the levitation of the iron placement on the object.

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.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I don't think it's farfetched silma, you can use magnetics and superconductors to repulse objects over short disntances.