Superconductivity
Jan. 22nd, 2012 01:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzy_daveWatching the Big Bang Theory again on TV, an American comedy that I have grown to love, and in a similar way that Frasier has affected me. It is geeky, clever and funny at the same time. I seem to be watching different seasons of it, depending on the time of the day, and I note that there is already been four seasons of it, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do. I might even buy a couple of seasons with my Play trade funds.
It is weird how people like Brian Cox has made science all sexy again. After his star gazing nights Amazon have reported a five fold increase in the sales of telescopes. Even Jim Al Khalili makes electricity sound fizzing on his recent series on it. I watched the third part of that series tonight on BBC4 whilst cousin was up the pub. Tonight he looked at the development of transistors leading to the microchip and how electricity works in these tiny circuits, and why computers have fans to cool them down to counteract heating up caused by resistance. Resistance drops when things are supercooled and conductivity flows better when resistance is very small, thus the next stage is to try to get superconducting components at room temperature. Once that happens a new age in computing power will emerge, and will be better for the environment , since resistance creates heat.
My battered old laptop will do for now, anyway.
It is weird how people like Brian Cox has made science all sexy again. After his star gazing nights Amazon have reported a five fold increase in the sales of telescopes. Even Jim Al Khalili makes electricity sound fizzing on his recent series on it. I watched the third part of that series tonight on BBC4 whilst cousin was up the pub. Tonight he looked at the development of transistors leading to the microchip and how electricity works in these tiny circuits, and why computers have fans to cool them down to counteract heating up caused by resistance. Resistance drops when things are supercooled and conductivity flows better when resistance is very small, thus the next stage is to try to get superconducting components at room temperature. Once that happens a new age in computing power will emerge, and will be better for the environment , since resistance creates heat.
My battered old laptop will do for now, anyway.
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