Word: superconductor
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Whatever the results, the race to create the substance is on and in the attempts to create the superconductor, scientists have devised a variety of experiments...
They may end up with a room temperature "superconductor" capable of conducting enormous electrical currents without resistance. With it "you can create enormous amounts of power without a power loss," says Silvera. Most conductors lose electrical power because of friction but a superconductor could transport electricity at super-fast speeds with greater energy efficiency...
...detect a fugitive monopole, Cabrera used a kind of magnetic mousetrap, which was connected to a SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device). He turned a coil of niobium, a platinum-gray metallic element, into a superconductor of electricity by cooling it to within nine degrees of absolute zero (minus 460° F). Current thus moved through it without resistance, allowing the slightest twitch in the current's flow to be recorded. At 1:53 p.m. on Feb. 14, the magnetic flux in Cabrera's device jumped eight steps, exactly what was expected if a Dirac monopole passed through. Cabrera...
...Bell Laboratories, and George LaRue-devised an updated version of the classical "oil drop" experiment, first used by Robert Millikan in 1910 to measure the charge on a single electron. Instead of oil drops, the Fairbank team relied on tiny spheres of niobium, a metal that becomes a superconductor when it is chilled to near absolute zero. When the sphere is levitated in a strong magnetic field, and virtually stripped of electrical charge, any charge that remains-even the minuscule charge of a single electron or, more significantly, a fraction of that charge-can be detected...
...Sonata for Two Pianos when the door flew open and a 5-ft. 8½-in. whirlwind spun into the room, flung a fur coat onto a chair, affectionately pinched the cheek of Professor Leon Kirchner and subsided into a sitting position on the floor. It was "retired" Superconductor Leonard Bernstein, now 54, making his rounds at Harvard as the new Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry...