What accounts for the smooth “settling” into place after the last touch around 10s?
I have no idea what I’m talking about, but in other flux pinning demonstrations the sample seems to oscillate around the fixed point. That smooth settling looks like some sort of damping, like maybe a force that increases with distance, like maybe spring tension.
(Of course, “we have no idea” is an acceptable answer if that turns out to be the case.)
Air resistance seems like a reasonable explanation for the dampening. Furthermore if it's not pure and only partially superconducting, the dampening could be due to magnetic fields forming eddy currents in the sample.
> (Of course, “we have no idea” is an acceptable answer if that turns out to be the case.)
Good hypotheses both! “We’ve never been able to pin something this size before” covers a lot of wiggle room. So to speak.
(FWIW I’m thrilled about the possibility of a rtrp drop this year, and I have to assume 'pera is as well. But this video doesn’t look just like flux pinning we’ve seen before. It’s visibly a little different in a way that wants explanation. I wouldn’t come out the gate calling it a hoax, but I’d feel better about not doing that if the basis for skepticism were at least acknowledged.)
I have no idea what I’m talking about, but in other flux pinning demonstrations the sample seems to oscillate around the fixed point. That smooth settling looks like some sort of damping, like maybe a force that increases with distance, like maybe spring tension.
(Of course, “we have no idea” is an acceptable answer if that turns out to be the case.)