Super (not yet!) Conductivity

Science recently celebrated the 100th birthday of super conductivity – a phenomenon that emerged with much promise and demonstrated staying power but without effect. It has scintillated scientists and engineers alike – the former trying to discover the reasons for its existence and the later trying to apply it to change the game in many domains including computing, atom-smashing and the plain old electron transmission. The constraint has always been temperature that needs to drop to ridiculous levels before the electrons come out to play, without resistance. The theory behind electron-cooperation took many decades to emerge but it did not fundamentally move anything to a higher level of understanding. Although scientific explanations have emerged at a more detailed level more recently – it is important to note that such insights are prisoners to the status quo framework that is tiring and shows many signs of breaking down.



Phenomena, such as super conductivity, are important as they not only challenge status quo frameworks but also provide valuable practical avenues to change the human-energy equation. Scientific research in universities always rewarded incremental improvements of accepted notions and discouraged what the aristocracy calls, peripheral excursions. Today's science, after all, is run by big universities and even bigger companies – who are less interested in a break-through and more interested in grants and next quarter's earnings. This is a shame as it is guaranteed to make science akin to automotive companies trying to improve the efficiency of their internal combustion engines, without ever asking if internal combustion engines are needed.



Incrementalism is growing like cancer on every scientific pursuit and it has only one predictable outcome – mediocrity of the human psyche.