Room temperature superconductivity (0 Celsius) = perpetual motion machine to me. They are both stored in the same region of my brain. This would CHANGE EVERYTHING
Finding a room temperature superconductor "would have enormous technological importance and, for example, help to solve the world’s energy problems, provide for faster computers, allow for novel memory-storage devices, and enable ultra-sensitive sensors, among many other possibilities." from http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?i...
From the electron's perspective, all superconductors are sort of perpetual motion machines. A perpetual motion machine is basically just any lossless kinetic system, so if you count electron flow in a loop of superconductor as a kinetic system, then it qualifies.
From the article, superconductivity is already possible at "higher" temperatures (-200 Celsius). Why would 0 Celsius specifically make it "perpetual motion machine" like to you (in the sense of breaking some fundamental physical law)? If I recall correctly, 0 Celsius is not a very significant number apart for being the freezing point of water.
STP[1] is 0 °C, 100 kPa. It's room temperature for science.
Edit: The significance of this is that superconductors that operate at room temperature did not exist. If they come into existence, and mature, you can expect to see the development of technology which appears to be powered by magic.
I understand that the practical implications of room temperature superconductivity would be huge.
I simply found the "= perpetual motion machine" part strange given that such machines are known to be impossible while >0K superconductivity is known to be possible (and if superconductivity is impossible past a given temperature, it would be a surprising coincidence if that temperature happened to be 273.15K). Now that I read the comment again, the original commenter probably didn't mean it literally.
Yeah, but it's a perpetual motion machine in the same sense that everything is; all particles evolve in time, i.e. the values of all six quantum fields change ceaselessly. The controversial (imaginary) perpetual motion machine is one that you can extract unlimited amounts of energy from.
Which is really funny to me, since energy is essentially defined as the constant that does not change in time (well, excluding general relativity).
why is it any more or less a perpetual motion machine than a low temperature superconductor?
before you suggest that it's because there's energy input to draw off the heat consider that if you took a low-t superconductor to pluto, it would still superconduct.
Finding a room temperature superconductor "would have enormous technological importance and, for example, help to solve the world’s energy problems, provide for faster computers, allow for novel memory-storage devices, and enable ultra-sensitive sensors, among many other possibilities." from http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?i...