Resistanceless conductors, hence permanent magnets?: Anon. (Sci. Amer., cx, No. 25, 497.)
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1914
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 60 KB
- Volume
- 178
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0016-0032
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✦ Synopsis
ANON. (5"ei. Amer., cx, No. 25, 497.)--For many years the laboratory of Prof. Kammerlingh Onnes at Leyden has been the centre from which some of the most important advances in low temperature research have been announced. It will be remembered that the Dutch physicist was the first to liquefy helium, the most refractory of all known gases, and that in the course of the experiments the lowest temperature on record, within a degree or so of absolute zero, was obtained. Lately attention has been centred on the remarkable influence of temperature on the electrical resistance of metals. This resistance becomes practically zero before the absolute zero of temperature is reached. Recent newspaper accounts state in somewhat vague terms that remarkable new developments have followed in the train of this work on the conduction of electricity at low temperatures. The question arises, What happens to an electric current once started in a conductor of zero resistance? Its energy is not dissipated as heat, since the ohmic effect is non-existent. Does the current continue to flow indefinitely? If so, a closed loop carrying a current would function as a permanent electromagnet. It is said that something of this kind has been observed.