Drunk Japanese Researcher Made Superconductor With Sake
45 replies, posted
I shit you not.
[QUOTE]
January 11, 2011 by Lin Edwards
(PhysOrg.com) -- A Japanese scientist who "likes alcohol very much" has discovered that soaking samples of material in hot party drinks for 24 hours turns them into superconductors at ambient temperature.
The scientist, Dr. Yoshihiko Takano of the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in Tsukuba, Japan, made the discovery after a party, soaking samples of a potential superconductor in hot alcoholic drinks before testing them next day for superconductivity. The commercial alcoholic beverages, especially wine, were much more effective than either water or pure alcohol.
Superconductors are metallic substances that allow electricity to flow through them with zero resistance below a certain temperature. Those found so far only work at very low temperatures (often as low as near absolute zero), and so finding one that works at room temperature could have important applications, such as power lines with superconducting cables, and perhaps in levitation of large objects like trains, since superconductors can repel magnetic fields. The phenomenon is still not completely understood even though superconductors have been known since their discovery in 1911 by a Dutch scientist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes.
The researchers created the samples of FeTe0.8S0.2 by sealing iron (Fe), tellurium (Te) and tellurium sulfide (TeS) powders into an evacuate quartz tube and heating the mixture at 600°C for 10 hours. This material is not normally a superconductor but can become one if exposed to oxygen or if soaked in water.
After a party for a visiting researcher Takano wondered if the drinks they were consuming would work as well as pure water. To find out, they tested the FeTe0.8S0.2 samples with beer, red and white wine, Japanese sake, Shochu (a clear distilled liquor) and whisky, and with various concentrations of ethanol and water. The samples were all heated and kept at 70°C for 24 hours.
The results were that the ethanol-water samples showed increased superconductivity that was not dependant on the ethanol concentration. The samples heated in alcoholic drinks all showed greater superconductivity, but again not dependant on the alcohol content. Red wine was the most effective. The research team calculated the superconducting volume fraction of the samples and found they ranged from 23.1% for Sochu up to 62.4% for red wine, but none of the ethanol samples were over 15%.
The authors speculate that because wine and beer oxidize easily and since oxygen induces superconductivity in the material, the beverages could be playing an important role in supplying oxygen into the sample as a catalyst. Further research is needed to confirm the exact mechanism.
More information: Superconductivity in FeTe1-xSx induced by alcohol, by Keita Deguchi, et al. arXiv:1008.0666v1 [cond-mat.supr-con] [url]http://arxiv.org/abs/1008.0666[/url]
[/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-hot-booze-material-superconductor.html[/url]
Image:
[IMG]http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/7009/1294780929752.png[/IMG]
what.
Fucking goddamn Science. :science:
so a room temperature superconductor walks into a (sake) bar
the bartender says "sorry but we don't serve your kind here"
and the superconductor leaves with zero resistance
Would you like a drinkie Mr Superconductor?
Material scientists the world over are now raging because their life's work has been usurped by a Japanese drunkard who probably only did it for a joke
Proof of aliens I tell you!
How else did we learn to make alcohol, which now turns out to be an able superconductor?
This has the potential to change the world.
Once again, alcohol is proven to be the answer to all of life's problems.
snip
Wait one damn second here; As hilarious and awesome as this is... it IS a room-temperature superconductor, right? That's what we're meant to understand?
Haven't we been trying to do that, for like, forever...? O_o
[QUOTE=Beafman;27355258]Proof of aliens I tell you!
How else did we learn to make alcohol, which now turns out to be an able superconductor?[/QUOTE]
and all this time we've been drinking it,
Funny how life works.
[QUOTE=goon165;27355336]and all this time we've been drinking it,
Funny how life works.[/QUOTE]
The romans learned how to use it in a computer by 420 A.D., but then they collapsed and the dark ages happened.
10 K doesn't seem like ambient temperature, but hey I'm not the guy who wrote the article so whatever.
Whoa. So. Cool.
Superconductors party hard.
[B]HOLD ON PEOPLE BEFORE EVERYONE GETS EXCITED[/B]
this isn't what it seems to be - in fact, it's a fucking lie that's going to cause a lot of confusion (it caused me quite a bit when I read the headline and then looked at the graph)
from the comments on the article page:
[quote]I would wish that PhysOrg checks its articles.
Had this article been true, we all would not have heard about anything else on TV all week. This would be the only topic, from university halls to the downtown kindergarten.[/quote]
[quote]Yeah, there was absolutely nothing to indicate a change in the superconducting temperature, except for the headline. Is it too much to ask for physorg to simply read the articles submitted to them before posting??[/quote]
[quote]I voted this article with a 1 because it is both bad reporting and misleading. If someone is reporting on scientific advances, it would be helpful if they knew just a bit of physics. 7.8K is ambient where? Even the lunar night is about 120K - so this article isn't relevant to anything of any importance to anyone who is sober.
Must have been a very slow science news day.[/quote]
[quote]Except they weren't. 70 F may be ambient temp, but 70 C is scalding hot.
The title is a lie meant to grab attention and bring in more ad dollars. Shame on Physorg, I'm turning adblock back on.[/quote]
[quote]New term: Beertronics
I too ranked the story with a 1. Y'all are being too generous by saying it's "misleading". I'll use the word we're all thinking. It's a lie.
[B]Ambient temperatures (well understood to mean "room temperature") were neither used in the creation of the material nor in the use of it. Furthermore, it's well known that the holy grail of superconductivity is to get it to work at room temperature, which is clearly what this article sub title was trying to make us believe.[/B]
I coin another term: Beerblogging, which is apparently what happened when the subtitle of this article was written.[/quote]
[QUOTE=Kalibos;27355592][B]HOLD ON PEOPLE BEFORE EVERYONE GETS EXCITED[/B][/QUOTE]
Too late!
But now I'm disappointed.
[QUOTE=Kalibos;27355592][B]HOLD ON PEOPLE BEFORE EVERYONE GETS EXCITED[/B]
this isn't what it seems to be - in fact, it's a fucking lie that's going to cause a lot of confusion (it caused me quite a bit when I read the headline and then looked at the graph)
from the comments on the article page:[/QUOTE]
:suicide:
Well the bacteria hard drives kinda make it up
Well fuck.
OH GOOD GOD! You can't lie on this, it's too important.
Ah, okay. I thought seeing "70 CELSIUS" looked odd given they were supposedly talking about room-temp SC's...
When something sounds too good to be true, it's probably false.
I read "snake" instead of "sake"
I was gravely disappointed.
[QUOTE=J-Dude;27356574]Ah, okay. I thought seeing "70 CELSIUS" looked odd given they were supposedly talking about room-temp SC's...[/QUOTE]
That's referring to the temp of the alcohol.
This material is superconductive until around -266/-265 C.
[QUOTE=Kalibos;27355183]so a room temperature superconductor walks into a (sake) bar
the bartender says "sorry but we don't serve your kind here"
and the superconductor leaves with zero resistance[/QUOTE]
POTY 2011 contender
[editline]11th January 2011[/editline]
Seriously
Thats pretty cool.
I usually never make these kinds of posts but I swear I read snake. I literally pictured a drunk Japanese researcher picking up a snake and forcing an electric current through it.
[QUOTE=Kalibos;27355183]so a room temperature superconductor walks into a (sake) bar
the bartender says "sorry but we don't serve your kind here"
and the superconductor leaves with zero resistance[/QUOTE]
Helium walks into a bar.
Bartender says, "We don't serve Noble Gases".
Helium doesn't react.
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