[net.physics] thermal superconductors

KING@KESTREL (12/28/82)

From: Richard M. King <KING at KESTREL>
	I stand by my comment that electrical superconductors are thermal
superconductors (wih the possible exception of Josephson junctions that are
in the superconducting state).  While I haven't performed the experiment
myself, Scientific American has run at least a half dozen articles on this
or that aspect of superconductivity, and many of them mention thermal
superconductivity as well.  (Note that in ordinarly metals heat and electricity
are both carried by the "electron gas".)

	Thermal superconductivity, like electrical superconductivity, does not
require infinite speed.  It only requires lack of a temperature difference over
any distance with any STEADY-STATE heat flux (just like electrical
superconductors are allowed to have transient voltage drops, but not
steady-state ones).

						Dick
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