The Meissner Effect In the Lab

Many of you may have seen pictures of the Meissner Effect at work. Pictures like the one below (from Wikipedia):

This is a picture of a magnet levitating over a superconductor which is sitting in a pool of liquid nitrogen. But few people, even physics majors, have even seen the Meissner Effect in person. One of the labs done by physics majors at UNC involves high temperature superconductors ("high temperature" is relative since this takes place at −196 °C or −321 °F), and as part of it they look at and see (for the first time for most students) the Meissner Effect in action. For the students the first time they actually see it they are all awed and amazed that they can see the magnet levitating, and then they can have the magnet spin in midair. It is a very impressive thing to see for the first time.

Today in lab (actually just a few minuets ago, since I am still sitting in lab while writing this) I took a video of the Meissner Effect at work. Sorry about the shaky camera, but it shows a levitating magnet spinning in midair.

Another hint of strings?

Earlier this month, scienceblog.com, published an article entitled, "Physical reality of string theory demonstrated". For those of you who haven't yet seen it, it is worth a little read. No doubt you will now sings shouts of "proof" and "down with the unbelievers" due to this HUGE amount of evidence that string theory is THE theory. (Note the extra smattering of sarcasm)

At least nature seems to be dangling the little carrot of experimental testability in front of us once again. Things like this will hopefully keep the strings community going until we can prove (or in the very unlike event: disprove) that 'strings are the thing'!