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From: mmm@weitek.UUCP (Mark Thorson)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.analog
Subject: Room-Temperature Superconductors
Message-ID: <287@weitek.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 20:02:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: weitek.287
Posted: Wed Oct  9 20:02:34 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 20:30:36 EDT
Organization: Weitek Corp. Sunnyvale Ca.
Lines: 25
Keywords: boron titanide, superconductor
Xref: watmath net.physics:3341 net.analog:487

A few years ago, Electronics magazine reported that someone named
Vahldieck (sp?) had developed a possible room-temperature superconductor.
The material was boron titanide.  He was working for the Air Force or Navy
or some similar branch of DOD.  It was reported that while the material
had not been proven to be an RTSC, it had repelled a magnetic field which
is one of the tests.

Does anyone have any more up-to-date information?

My curiosity happened to be triggered by a book I'm reading, The Soviet
Union Today published by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  It says
that the Soviet Academy of Sciences has stated their goals for research
and development.  The top priority is fairly predictable -- controlled
nuclear fusion.  But the NUMBER TWO priority is the discovery of an RTSC.

Wow!  What a bold step!  Few directed research programs have been so ambitious!
The decision in 1960 to go to the moon comes to mind.  So does the scheduling
of the development of a solid-state amplifier as the top mission of Bell Labs
(1934).

Do Americans tackle such goals anymore?  What's happened to our scientific
resolve?  Do we just pursue straight-line research?  Do we just care about
next quarter's bottom line?  I'm jealous.  You should be, too.

Mark Thorson (...!cae780!weitek!mmm)