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From: witters@fluke.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: New superconducting (Houston)
Message-ID: <1799@vax1.tc.fluke.COM>
Date: Tue, 24-Feb-87 12:43:57 EST
Article-I.D.: vax1.1799
Posted: Tue Feb 24 12:43:57 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Feb-87 02:06:11 EST
References: <9566@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> <1439@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> <2144@pur-phy.UUCP>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
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Does anyone else remember an article some years back in Electronics about a
possible room temperature superconductor?  Apparently someone used a 4 terminal
Ohm meter to measure the resistance of some titanium alloy they were trying to
make ductile, and it indicated zero resistance.  However, this is only one
characteristic of a true superconductor, and the article said that further
experiments would have to be done to determine if the material would repel a
magnetic field.  I never saw a followup article.  If I remember correctly, the
article appeared sometime in 1979 or 1980.  Since I haven't seen anything more
about this, I can think of three possibilities.

	1.	The experiments were performed, and it turned out that the
		material wasn't a superconductor.  It seems to me that if this
		was the case, there would have been a followup article.

	2.	The NSA classified the research.  If I remember correctly, the
		research was originally being done for the Air Force (titanium,
		remember?), so it would be easy for the stuff to get
		classified.

	3.	The article appeared in the April issue.  If so, I think there
		should have been a followup revealing the article as a prank.

-- 
I'm not a lumberjack and I'm not O.K.		John Witters	(206) 356-5274
						John Fluke Mfg. Co.  Inc.
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