Does superconductivity really have zero resistance?

clearwater304 · Nov 24, 2011

Take for instance putting the large hadron collider in space at a near absolute zero where you never have to put energy in to cool down the system. The LHC takes 10 GJ to run and the total energy of the two beams is 724 MJ. [1] Since the power to run the system never experiances resistence, would you have to pump power in to keep the system going. If not, doesn't it defy the conservation of energy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

ZapperZ · Nov 24, 2011

clearwater304 said: ↑

Take for instance putting the large hadron collider in space at a near absolute zero where you never have to put energy in to cool down the system. The LHC takes 10 GJ to run and the total energy of the two beams is 724 MJ. [1] Since the power to run the system never experiances resistence, would you have to pump power in to keep the system going. If not, doesn't it defy the conservation of energy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider

What does this have anything to do with superconductivity having zero resistance? Have you even looked up the physics of superconductivity?

Zz.

clearwater304 · Nov 24, 2011

The example was questioning whether you can have a circuit run continously without supplying power. According to the wiki page, you can. If so, can that circuit do work on a system, and does that not violate the conservation of energy.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductivity

granpa · Nov 25, 2011

the force on a charged particle in a magnetic field is at a right angle to the motion therofore no work is done and no energy is required

Drakkith · Nov 25, 2011

A superconducting electromagnet is pretty much just like a normal bar magnet in the fact that the magnetic field itself cannot do work.

clearwater304 · Nov 25, 2011

Thanks, those are good explanations for why no energy is not excerted on the magnets. I'm still curious how energy is conserved. The unruh effect states that the particle would gain vacuum energy due to acceleration. If the magnets aren't doing work on the particle, where does the excess energy come from. If it comes from vacuum energy, how does this not break the conservation of energy.

I'm not trying to prove point, I really do want a good explanation. At first I thought the system must exhibit some sort of resistance becuase every site I read says vacuum energy conserves energy.