Voltage Over A Superconductor, superconduction

Resistivity and for that matter resistance cannot be directly measured but only inferred. Kamerlingh-Onnes published his experiment on mercury (done in 1911) as a drop in resistance. What he really measured was a drop in voltage over the contacts to the superconductor. This means that the applied, static, conservative electric-field between the contacts must have dropped to zero. To model superconduction one MUST explain how such a static, conservative electric-field is canceled when superconduction kicks in. There is not a single model on superconduction (including the macro-model by Ginsberg and Landau as well as the microscopic model by Bardeen-Cooper and Schrieffer BCS) which can explain how such a field is canceled. Thus 98 years after Onnes we can still not explain how superconduction occurs! The 50 year celebration of the BCS-model has thus been premature!!!

Am I wrong; and if I am, why?

Is there nobody who wants to challenge me? Nobel Prizes have been awarded for these conventional models of superconduction. I would have thought that by stating that these models are not able to model the most important aspect of superconduction (i.e. that they cannot explain how a static, applied, conservative electric-field "disappears" when superconduction kicks in) would have led to a torrent of attacks!! Or have I stated my case so well that everybody agrees? Wow!

This post has been edited by johanfprins on Oct 22 2008, 08:32 AM

Well; i guess we ought to stop calling it a superconductor and start calling it an 'electric (field) INSULATOR'.....hehehe

JW



This post has been edited by Just Wonderful on Oct 22 2008, 02:03 PM

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This post has been edited by Just Wonderful on Oct 22 2008, 04:43 PM

You are starting to get there! Tune up your IQ and you will realize that even a perfect metal cannot cancel an applied, static conservative electric-field. Only a perfect dielectric can: as you would call it an insulator. In fact a superconductor is an insulator that conducts by means of quantum-fluctuations. If its charge-carriers cannot be polarized to cancel an applied, static, conservative electric-field, Kamerlingh-Onnes would not have discovered superconduction.

REALLY QUITE SIMPLE;

It is a pleasure!

Well; Johan; if you think you had it all figured out with your 'spin polarized' theory, why did you bother to ask in the first place?

Why didn't you simply present your theory and ask others to critique it?

This post has been edited by Just Wonderful on Oct 23 2008, 10:59 PM

Very good question. I have tried to do so for the last five years but could not get it published. A Nobel Laureate on superconduction sent me a message that he will not even read what I have written because he "knows that he will disagree".

There might be good news in the offing: I hope. I have submitted my manuscript at a "reputable journal": For a change I succeeded to get past the Editor, but the two referees rejected it: Their reasons were based on what they "deduced" that I am arguing NOT on what is in the manuscript. I have thus removed the possibilities that such wrong deductions can be made and lodged an appeal. It is now again under consideration since a month ago.

It is really quite simple: And it is probably for this reason why the Superconducting community is trying everything in its power to block it. The fact is that a voltage over two contacts can only become zero when the concomitant electric-field between the contacts becomes canceled. This is "primary school" physics. This is what Onnes observed when he discovered superconduction; This is thus the defining property of superconduction that MUST be explained. This is the property that has since 1911 NOT been explained. You see, such a cancellation cannot occur while a current is flowing through a metal whether scattering of the charge carriers occur or not. It can only occur when the metal turns into a perfect dielectric as soon as superconduction initiates. But where does the current then comes from? Obviously there is no electric-field that can drive it. Thus the energy must come from somewhere else and this energy must not dissipate normally; or else one will measure resistance. Thus it can only be supplied by quantum fluctuations: Each charge carrier borrows energy for a time interval as allowed by Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship to move from its position to the position of the next charge carrier; which in turn borrows energy to move on. The energy is thus used and returned; just as the second law of thermodynamics requires for perpetual motion to occur: And Oh yes the charge-carriers need not be paired-electrons. The factor 2 measured for flux quantization comes from Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship and does not relate to a double-charge.

You can thus see why, after 50 years of Cooper Pairs, which also led to the vector bosons etc. the mainstream scientits would rather die than to publish arguments (based on incontrovertible principles already taught in undergraduate physics) that they have been barking up the wrong tree.

This post has been edited by johanfprins on Oct 24 2008, 07:56 AM

Thanks for the fuller explanation, Johan.

Obviously, superconductivity has not been completely resolved, and you bring up a good point as to why one never hears of the 'cause' of zero electric field....

I have had thoughts like this before...that the cooper pairs ARE interacting with the quantum fluctuations, but only because they ARE in the condensed state, not to the supplantation of it.

Nevertheless, you say, ".... such a cancellation (of E) cannot occur while a current is flowing through a metal whether scattering of the charge carriers occur or not. It can only occur when the metal turns into a perfect dielectric as soon as superconduction initiates" (good point).... but then you surmise there is no other source for the electromotive force to drive the current.....except ZPE.

But are you aware of the fact that there IS an instantaneous non-conservative electric field that develops as a result of the expulsion of the magnetic field (at critical temp.) which does drive the current.? According to Maxwell, of course. And if, as is typically shown, resistance drops to zero, then the supercurrent continues WITHOUT any further need for electric field. Likewise, IF the supercurrent is actually conducted through a dielectric by means of a resistance free interaction with the vacuum fluctuations, there is still no need for an electric field.

My point is that there is no NEED for Quantum fluctuations to be a SOURCE of energy....it may very well be the mechanism for superconduction, however....
All that is necessary is an initial electro-motive force to get cooper pairs moving. If the vacuum interaction is non-dissipative that is sufficient to keep them moving...

I think if you frame your arguments in such a manner, you will not receive so much resistance from your adversaries who are obviously on edge about the 'free energy' / perpetual motion implications.....In fact, I suggest you leave out any mention of the term 'perpetual motion' in your future explanations....

just my thoughts.

JW

This post has been edited by Just Wonderful on Oct 25 2008, 03:25 AM

Thanks for your well-reasoned response. There is, however, a problem when you want to use the "kick" from the non-conservative field to drive a supercurrent. This is only possible if the current is circular (neglecting of course the fact that a circular current must dissipate by emitting EM radiation; or else we would not have had micro-wave ovens): Such a kick cannot mainatin a current flowing from one contact to the other. For the charge-carriers to move, they must have kinetic energy and if they enter a contact before getting rid of this energy, they will scatter within the contact. Just as liquid helium will scatter if you decant it to fall down on a table top. This will register as resistance of the superconductor. Furthermore after the initial non-conservative "kick" there are no subsequent "kicks to the charge-carriers that flow in at the injection contact. The current must then go to zero.

There is no doubt that for the current to flow the charge-carriers injected at the injecting contact must in some manner acquire the required kinetic energy. This cannot come from the initial non-conservative kick in electric field. Neither can it come from a conservative electric field; since the voltage will then not be zero. The kinetic energy MUST come from somewhere else and then it must be returned before it can dissipate within the target contact. Only quantum-fluctuations can do this. When using this postulate, one obtains a simple quadratic equation which explains and models all aspects of superconduction (completely self-consistent on the microscopic level).

I know the term "perpetual motion" has become a dirty "crank" word: However, a superconducting current going around a ring after it has been captured by the magnetic flux through the hole of the ring does perform perpetual motion. According to the second law of thermodynamics this is only possible if the energy required for this to happen comes from a source and is then again returned to the source. Only quantum fluctuations in energy; as allowed by Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship of energy and time can do this.

This post has been edited by johanfprins on Oct 25 2008, 06:10 AM

The main reason your manuscript hasn't been published is that you've got basic electrical theory backwards.

Electrical flow diminishes the electrical field across it. Look up Ohm's Law. When you have a perfect conductor, you can't have *any* voltage field across it. Current flows without resistance or voltage. This isn't a laboratory/theoretical construct, they build superconducting magnets for MRI machines, every hospital in the Western world has at least one MRI machine. Superconductivity theory is incomplete (and in my opinion, incorrect), but superconductors' functionality is well-known.

Plasmas are also "perfect conductors" in that they *cannot* sustain an impressed electrical field on them. The mechanism by which they neutralize the electrical field is that positive ions flow towards negative charges and vice-versa. They aren't "perfect dielectrics", they're the exact opposite.

Sorry.

WCElliott, BS/EE, MS/EE

Sorry, but you are talking nonsense. Voltage is a potential energy difference. If you have a resistivity within the material between two contacts one can relate this voltage with the overall resistance by means of Ohm's law: However, if there is no resistivity within the material between the contacts, the voltage does NOT drop to zero; even though there is no resistance.

If your reasoning is correct, it would mean that when one drops a ball to fall through a distance h, it will only experience a change in potential energy when it encounters friction while it is falling. Maybe you have not been nable to understand Newton's laws: But if you go back to them, you will find that a change in potential energy has absolutely NOTHING to do with resistance to motion.

A perfect conductor can only cancel an electric field within it when NO CURRENT is flowing through it: For example when placing it between two capacitor plates (without making contact to the perfect conductor) negative electrical charges will accumulate near the positive capacitor plate while positive charges will accumulate near the negative capacitor plate. This static polarization of charges will cancel the electrical field. When, however pushing the capacitor plates against the perfect conductor a current will flow. In fact the current is flowing in an attempt to cancel the electric-field (and thus the voltage) but it can NEVER happen because the charge carriers cannot accumulate to cancel the concomitant electric-field. Charges cannot accumulate; thus the voltage CANNOT go to zero!

Remind me NEVER to ask you to design an electronic circuit for me!

This post has been edited by johanfprins on Oct 26 2008, 02:03 PM

Oh by the way, when you have a perfect conductor between two contacts, remember to insert a bias resistor within the circuit. I hope you all know what this is and what it is for!

Gee, funny how many circuits I *have* built using Ohm's Law that have worked exactly as I'd designed them to work in the 30 years of my career, what with me having Ohm's Law backwards (according to you).

Why does nobody who seems to even have half a clue what they're talking about ever, ever agree with you???

One of life's little mysteries I guess