<![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering - Gizmodo Comments]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering - Gizmodo Comments]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> maybe some sort of cool new way to ice skate/hover, since it needs to be so cold..

jazzwordup

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Executive Summary: They figured out a way to make spaceship docking safer and easier using superconductors and magnets.

Disclaimer: The photos and the title were designed to entice you to read the article and in no way relate to the real news. Please do not get fixated on them. We know it's 15-year-old technology. The news isn't that magnets float but that such a cheap gimic turns out to have practical uses.

shawn_dude

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Now, if only they could figure out how to make this technology work for car doors so I can stop getting dings. People need to learn how to open doors. :(

Eclectified

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @tnash wrote Also....I still don't understand the conservation of energy behind this
Energy is force x distance. The forces cancel out, so the thing doesn't move, so no energy is used up keeping the thing levitated, so energy is conserved. It's just like my desk chair is keeping my sorry ass off the ground, which requires a lot of force (Newton's third law), but no energy.

skierpage

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Wake me up when I can get a Mattel hover board.

Absent Blue

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Sadly we will never have one of these things in mainstream until 20 years from now.

The reason why we aren't in the future not is becuase the US is not investing in new technologies.. Currently, companies have to spend their own money to make things happen. If the US have 2 million to these scientists today, I can bet you that well have those speeders by tomorrow. As you can see, its all about money. If we can stop wasting our money on Iraq and a little more on making this country better, perhaps people would stop hating us and maybe actually look up to us.

Things can happen, but you need the money to do it.

The-Joker

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> why don't you all make like a tree and get outta here

BigViper

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> ha i do that at home at room temp. do a search for pyrolytic graphite.

TheJunkMonger

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @jnriga:
that is news.
cause i thought it was staged

dun dun dunn

Terrorsaur.

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I think a lot of you are missing the point of the post. The discussion isn't the fact that a chilled superconductor can exhibit a flux pinning effect, it's the fact that they are attempting to use it in satellite systems. I worked on this particular project at Cornell and the goal is to create many small spacecraft which can come together to form a larger satellite. Each system would control one piece of the satellite and if it were to malfunction a new one could be sent up since they would all be separate from each other. There's a long way to go before it will be ready for testing but it's a start (we were using LN2 to cool the superconductor and hoping to use a vacuum to keep it cool.)

crunkbear

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @riqgeez: didn't you hear that heels are going to be called knees in the future? Haha

livermore111

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Before I pass out, I really want to make a point that people should watch the NOVA documentary about reaching absolute Zero. It was an awesome documentary and there is lasers and crazy liquids, and quantum computers, and mad scientist.

thechansen

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @Cin: Wow. Ok no. It's Yttrium Barium Carbon and Oxygen. These are simple superconductor setups... they have been around for a VERY long time. 15 years ago I demonstrated this technology at the Center of Science and Industry. Getting the magnets to -300F is done quite simply with a bath in liquid nitrogen (about -327F). After 10-20 seconds of cool off the magnet simple lifts right off the other one and floats until it warms up.

I'm literally shocked to see this as headline news on this site...

Whats next!?!? Guess what everyone!! We LANDED on the moon!

jnriga

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> deucailion

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @xanderjanz: Yeah, I saw this on TV even earlier than that. Like 1998 or something.

SFLegend

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @IKEACAR: Ziiiiiing!

golferal

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> It would be awesome if they were able to generate a directional field. I wonder if they have tried to attach the magnets (superconductor and magnet) to something that would block the magnetic interference (unmagnetizable material) or coat the nearest parts, and place the magnets at a 45 degree angle. They would have to stabilize the magnets (magnet and superconductor), but a small resistance would overextend from the edges, just like when playing with smaller magnets, you can feel the like polarities repel each other. If they could do that without the low temperature or high electricity like a MAG-RAIL we'd have hovering cars. I wonder what material they used for their superconductor, does anybody know? Also, does anybody know if there are side effects to high magnetic fields and people?

Cae64

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I just read about this in Michio Kaku's new book "Physics of the Impossible." He talks about using S.C. as a means of levitating cars, trains, even ourselves. Of course the stipulation being the requirement of a room-temperature S.C. Currently the world record for a high-temp. S.C. is 138K (-135 degrees C) by a substance called mercury thallium barium calcium copper oxide.

wghj55

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I hate to reiterate things in posts but I can't help it here. This has been around since the late eighties and is hardly news. Yttrium barium copper oxide doused in liquid nitrogen. I remember finding a "recipe" for it in Discover or PopSci and trying to convince my high school chemistry teacher to make a class project out of it in 1991. She wanted to do it but the compounds needed are fairly expensive(for a high school lab budget) and you needed a special high power press for the ceramic disk.

Turns out one of the biggest problems with this has been how brittle the superconducting ceramic is. I remember at one point a company had integrated into some sort of polymer but mass production was a problem. Not sure how this is really news unless there is some advancement that makes the application practical.

Ooooor, maybe the Giz crew just needed an excuse to throw some MJF and tacky Nikes up on a quiet Friday afternoon :-)

grendelthing

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @tnash: The force comes from the magnetic field. I remember watching a video from MIT a while back that showed this property. Apparently, it has something to do with the magnetic field flowing evenly around the magnet from the superconductor.

New superconductors aren't terribly difficult to produce nowadays, since certain copper oxide materials show superconductivity above 77 k or -196 degrees Celsius (you can use liquid nitrogen *relatively cheap* to cool them).

gforce

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I'm no physicist but I am pretty sure to keep a superconductor below (-300f)it takes a considerable amount of energy. More than any alternator or battery in a typical production vehicle could ever pump out. Face it guys we will be stuck on the pavement for at least another 60 years. What ever happened to Moller's Skycar???

Michai

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Sounds like they're gasping for the last straw in their labs.

Those superconductive-Magnets-are-floating-stories are old.

Klappstuhl

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @ItsRabid:
it's not the temperature differential, it's that near 0 kelvin materials behave differently.

nutbastard

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> So if the bottom one needs to have a ~300ยบ difference from the top, shouldn't it work if they heating up the top one?

ItsRabid

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @thechansen: thats what I want those Nikes,

Chagocal

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I think the real quandary here is: Does Nike still make those hovercraft boots and where can I get those? Want me a fresh pair of those puppies. Booyah!

michaelportent

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> My aunt Olga was regularly able to hover for a few moments using her own blown air as a propellant. Cleared the room pretty quick, too.

Sora57

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> If we can manage to dig up some Prothean ruins then maybe.

thechansen

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @N@tedog:

We'll see it in less than 50 years.

nutbastard

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @thechansen: @nutbastard: Suffice it to say, for intents and purposes we are a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG way away from any simplified hovering capabilities not using blown air or magnetism as a primary medium for suspension.

N@tedog

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> My apologies CERN has only created, which they believe they have but considering the incredibly short life spans of the material they are not able to prove it, theoretical exotic matter a limited number of occasions. which could in theory have negative mass. Physics does allow for negative mass, but there is none known particle which has this characteristic.

thechansen

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> slight correction:

"Virtually every modern physicist suspects that antimatter has positive mass and should fall down just like normal matter. That being said, it is thought that this view has not yet been conclusively empirically observed."

nutbastard

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @thechansen:
antimatter does not repel matter - it obeys conventional gravity laws the same as normal matter. in fact, because of the positrons it's actually highly attracted to normal matter.

It doesn't have negative mass, either. I 'm not sure what you're thinking of but it's not anti-matter.

I think you're talking about negative matter...???

nutbastard

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @N@tedog:

Yes, like antigravity. I'm talking hoverboards here. The pairing of superconductors and magnets is fine if you're just gonna slap some of em on the outside of a space vessel, but for ground transportation such requirements for an as yet unimplemented pair would be a deal breaker.

nutbastard

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @N@tedog: @nutbastard: the problem with antigravity is that it would (in theory) require some large amount of antimatter, which then raises the question of how to stop the antimatter from just going poof from interaction with normal matter? CERN is only able to produce tiny amounts of the stuff and it requires huge amounts of resources. Then you have to consider the negative mass, which is theoretical, put out by that antimatter in order to overcome the gravitational field of earth. All in all, science fiction mumbojumbo.

thechansen

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @Joewithay, thechansen
hey if u want those shoes to happen (McFly2015's) sign up at [www.mcfly2015.com]

Godson

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @warhawkfanboi: The fact that you even took the time to look them up clearly shows your a nerd, and siting wikipedia is sooo 2007.

GonzP-4L

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @nutbastard: What like antigravity? I'd agree that using one pair that already exists in nature to substitute one side of the equation would simplify things. Though, one could argue that 'magnetism' (in this posts usage) and your usage of gravity are congruent forces when applied to hovering. So gravity is just the medium in your example as magnetism is the medium here and not necessarily entities doing any acting on one another.

N@tedog

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]>

Wow. 1987 called, they want their "news" back.

[en.wikipedia.org]

[en.wikipedia.org]

warhawkfanboi

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> i find i get the same effect after 10 beers

fastmike

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @N@tedog:
Semantics - the advantage of gravity based hovering is the fact that one half of the pair already exists exactly where we want it.

nutbastard

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @jrghoull: McFly, you bojo.

MisterSleep

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> CSX321: The difference is that with a superconductor the magnet is held in a 3d position inside the field. With your floating pen the magnet in the pen is repulsed from the base magnet. If there isn't anything on the other side keeping the pen from shooting away from the base it would eventually get far enough away that the repulsion has no affect anymore. (Short Version): Superconductors can lock magnets into their field at a specific location, magnets can only attract or repel each other.

visionep

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @CSX321:

i think stability...

MrBlahBlah

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> the picture got my hopes up only to be smashed upon reading the post.

Damn you, Frucci

MrBlahBlah

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Cinloykko

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> How is this different from the floating pen I have on my desk, which is at room temperature? I don't say that sarcastically; I just don't understand how this effect is different or better in practical terms.

CSX321

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> why are there 2 sets of knee pads on the back of the Nikes?

riqgeez

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Wow, this has been around for a while.

Futurescience used to sell kits that allowed you to demo magnetic 'pinning'

They don't anymore, but they have directions on how to make your own superconductors:

[www.futurescience.com]

ebob9

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Elliuotatar

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @Discofunk:
They did talk about that guy who fucked up at the Nobel Prize ceremony, that was 03 I believe, I thought they filmed it around the same time.

thechansen

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> The hovering magnet thing is cool, but does anyone look at those nikes and think ouch? They look like they hurt

MickyK

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @WilCon: that's freakin hilarious...

Seriously, though- wasn't this on the discovery channel like ten years ago? I don't see where the advancement is but then again I never went past my first physics class so maybe I'm too dense for it...

MasterYong

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> mmmm...magnets...

Also....I still don't understand the conservation of energy behind this, as no physics professor of mine ever had the balls with which to explain. Where is the energy coming from to hover the magnet? Is it merely from the energy used to cool the superconductor? Pardon my poor physics fellow Gizmodo readers/physics geniuses.

tnash

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> What if one of the objects is moving a high rate of speed relative to it's opposite?

Lupison

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> pantsonfireliarliar: thats not how fields in superconductors work. This idea for levitation with S.C. isn't new, but the application to satellites I guess is new though. S.C. toy train http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfUWDYm0ewI

Molbork

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I remember these guys making the talkshow circuit several years ago. They had a ceramic disk, a metal ball and a tank of liquid nitrogen. They set it up and the crowd oohed an aahed. BFD

reddingofish

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @thechansen: Those two episodes are two of my favourite NOVA episodes. I thought they played for the first time just a few months ago?

Discofunk

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @riqgeez:

hoverboards dont work on water!! you need POWWWWERRRR!!

/biff quote

jrghoull

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I dunno, sounds more like a tractor/repulsor beam to me. Shoot a sticky superconducting magnet on the enemy then use a permanently mounted magnet on your own ship as a tractor beam to pull it in. Sure distances would be severely limited but with enough power, maybe?

BTW, I claim all patent rights to this idea...

pantsonfireliarliar

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @riqgeez: Just point a fan backwards?

Eschguy

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Fuck Luke Skywaker.

I want the hoverboard from Back to the Future, yo.

legacye

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @nutbastard: But even 'gravity based' indicates a 'pairing'. Force is needed to keep an object hovering. 'Force' as a property of physics denotes two entities are present, one acting on another. There will always be a 'pairing' for hover technology if I'm understanding your use of that word. Even hovering itself is a spacial term indicating one subject is in close proximity to another subject without touching. A 'pairing' would always be present.

N@tedog

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> My mother has been able to hover without electricity or magnets for years.

Sora57

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> The hovering aspect is fine but can it go? There is no force to make it move forward yet.

riqgeez

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I read about this several years ago. They were specifically working with a compound of mercury, barium, copper, and some other things that I forget. But yeah, the energy required to cool it down enough to do that has always been too great. I don't see why this is news now, since the situation seems to be exactly the same as when I first read about it a few years back...

Cin

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> WilCon

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Will this work with higher-temperature semiconductors? Trans-Siberian low-power hover trains will really cut down on shipping from Russia (maybe even Europe) to America...

Ethan Allison

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> -300 degrees, huh? Well they could get it to work over Paris Hiltons heart I guess.

IKEACAR

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Hoverboard, check.

And Nike where the hell are those shoes; only 7 more years until 2015.

Joewithay

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> A balmy 88.7 degrees kelvin. So much for hover boarding over the Caribbean.

Geisrud

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> What a rip-off! I totally had this idea like, 5 years ago.
I just never collected enough beer cans to finish my superconductor. Also, I have no real understanding of physics.
Nevertheless, I want a cut of that Nobel Prize!

blank

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @xanderjanz: Interesting thing is I remember showing a video to a Physics class about 2 or 3 months ago, about the race to reach absolute zero and Bose-Einstein condensates and they had a part on magnetism and superconductors. It was a PBS special a few years back.

thechansen

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> @Monty:
and like any other kind of maglev (it appears) it needs to be paired - true hover technology will have to be gravity based.

nutbastard

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Fuck the hoverboard, I want the self fastening high tops. Or is it possible to have both, with out being Michael J. Fox?

thechansen

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> Scientists have been working for decades to make superconductive material at room temperature with very little success. It took a major jump in the early 90's (I believe) when they discovered a ceramic-type of material with superconductive properties at a fairly high temperature (I believe that high temperature is -300 degrees), but that is the closest they have come that I am aware of.

All of which is to say, this is really nifty for those people who plan on riding a land speeder in space - were it not for the fact that everything already floats in space.

Monty

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> this picture is in my physics class text book created 4 years ago. Are you sure you got correct info Giz?

xanderjanz

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> I haaate manure.

ILikeMacsWhatAboutIT

]]> <![CDATA[Scientists Use Superconductors to Get Spacecrafts Hovering]]> want want want want want!!!!

However, the question of degaussing remains to be addressed...

nutbastard

]]>