BBC News - Superconductors got hot 25 years ago
Superconductivity is a hundred years old this month, and a way to make it accessible turned 25 this week. But just how it does what it does remains a mystery even now.
Essentially, it is the property - exhibited by certain materials, often at low temperatures - to channel electrical current with zero resistance and very little power loss.
Imagine hitting a cue ball with a snooker cue and it never slowing down, carrying on across the baize for years, or forever.
In essence, that was the promise of superconductivity a century ago when the phenomenon was first discovered by Dutch physicist Kamerlingh Onnes.
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