mmm@weitek.UUCP (Mark Thorson) (10/10/85)
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)