{"id":245385,"date":"2026-10-14T09:07:29","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T14:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/a-major-superconductor-speed-limit-was-just-broken"},"modified":"2026-10-14T09:07:29","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T14:07:29","slug":"a-major-superconductor-speed-limit-was-just-broken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/a-major-superconductor-speed-limit-was-just-broken","title":{"rendered":"A Major Superconductor \u2018Speed Limit\u2019 Was Just Broken"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-major-superconductor-speed-limit-was-just-broken.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Superconductors give us sci-fi-worthy technologies like levitating trains, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/scientists-simulated-the-big-bangs-aftermath-and-found-the-universe-was-like-soup\">Big-Bang-replicating particle colliders<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/a-40-year-assumption-about-high-temperature-superconductors-just-fell-apart\">medical machines<\/a> that reveal our innermost secrets \u2013 thankfully only the physiological ones and not, perhaps, a secret love of polka dance.<\/p>\n<p>But superconducting states are fragile. Materials must be cooled to very low temperatures, approaching the dark frigidity of outer space, to conduct electricity without resistance and subsequent energy loss.<\/p>\n<p>The strength of the electrical current and of external magnetic fields can also snap these materials out of their superconducting states, as a curious cat\u2019s whisker or mistimed sneeze can knock down a precarious series of dominos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Superconductors give us sci-fi-worthy technologies like levitating trains, Big-Bang-replicating particle colliders, and medical machines that reveal our innermost secrets \u2013 thankfully only the physiological ones and not, perhaps, a secret love of polka dance. But superconducting states are fragile. Materials must be cooled to very low temperatures, approaching the dark frigidity of outer space, to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}