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"There's no point in making a mistake unless you understand the mistake so that you don’t make it again."
- Alfred Bester
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| Superconductor of Heat | ||
| A light metal that accepts heat applied to its surface, and then dissipates the energy throughout the material, leaving the temperature of the material unchanged. |
A superconductor is a substance that will conduct electricity without resistance; typically, a very low temperature is required. Electrical current will flow forever in a closed loop of super conducting material
| Lafferty used his cutting laser. They stood around watching the narrow green beam do nothing to the silvery casing. Staley wondered: where was the energy going? He took a thermometer reading. The casing was just less than red-hot all over. When Lafferty turned off the laser the casing cooled rapidly; but it maintained the same temperature at every point. A superconductor of heat... They tore sheets off with their gauntleted hands. |
| Technovelgy from The Mote in God's Eye,
by Larry Niven (w/J. Pournelle). Published by Simon & Schuster in 1974 Additional resources -
|
The obvious advantage of a superconductor of electricity is that there is no loss; the power received at the device is equal to the power generated at the source. A superconductor of heat would make it more efficient to heat specific areas using a centralized system
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'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
