If researchers are right, it would be one of the biggest discoveries in physics in the past few decades. But history provides plenty of reasons for caution. What makes this breakthrough so exciting? We explain
. If the researchers are right, it would be one of the biggest discoveries in physics in the past few decades. A Nobel prize would be a mere formality. But history provides plenty of reasons for caution. Labs around the world are rushing to test the results. What exactly is so exciting?
A superconductor is to electricity what a completely frictionless surface would be to mechanics. Unlike the conductors and semiconductors from which electrical devices are presently made, a superconductor would offer no resistance to a current flowing through it. That could mean, among other things, faster microchips, cheaper medical scanners, better electric motors, the ability to transmit electricity over long distances with no losses and more.
And unlike frictionless surfaces, superconductors actually exist. The first to be discovered, more than 100 years ago, was mercury—though it only becomes a superconductor when chilled to within a few degrees of absolute zero, or -273°C, the coldest temperature possible. Since then scientists have found a handful of materials that are superconductive at slightly higher temperatures. Even these “high-temperature” superconductors, though, require cooling to far below freezing.
The only missing element in this happy story, at least at the time of writing, is replication. Some preliminary computer simulations by other researchers, including at
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