Canadian scientists have made an important advance that could one day lead to a science-fiction world of levitating trains and batteries that don't lose their juice sitting in the drawer.
"People might have these things in their homes — levitating devices, ultra-effecient power transmission ... these technologies exist," said David Hawthorn from the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
Hawthorn and his colleagues study superconductivity, a state in which a material exhibits zero resistance to an electric current and expels all magnetic fields. A loop of superconducting wire would be able to carry an electrical pulse around and around indefinitely with no additional energy source.
Superconductors, already used in devices such as MRI machines, could also usher in a new generation of everything from superfast computers to ultra-efficient wind turbines. But first, scientists have to crack the temperature problem.
Even a so-called "high-temperature superconductor" operates at -110 C — achievable in a lab, but not in everyday situations. A room temperature superconductor is the Holy Grail of such research.
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