MixedNuts comments on Ask an experimental physicist - Less Wrong

35 Post author: RolfAndreassen 08 June 2012 11:43PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (294)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: MixedNuts 01 September 2012 08:52:07PM 3 points [-]

Do superconductors actually have really, trully, honest-to-Omega zero resistance, or is it just low enough that we can ignore it over really long time frames?

It's for-real zero. (Source: conference La supraconductivité dans tous ses états, Palaiseau, 2011) Take a superconductive loop with a current in it and measure its resistance with a precise ohmeter. You'll find zero, which tells you that the resistance must be less than the absolute error on the ohmeter. This tells you that an electron encounters a resistive obstacle at most every few ten kilometers or so. But the loop is much smaller than that, so there can't be any obstacles in it.

Comment author: bogdanb 02 September 2012 07:12:55AM 1 point [-]

It's for-real zero. (Source: conference La supraconductivité dans tous ses états, Palaiseau, 2011)

Man, that is so weird. I live in Palaiseau—assuming you’re talking about the one near Paris—and I lived there in 2011, and I had no idea about that conference. I don’t even know where in Palaiseau it could have taken place...

Comment author: MixedNuts 02 September 2012 10:46:31AM 1 point [-]

That one talk was at Supoptique. There were things at Polytechnique too, and I think some down in Orsay.