Physicists have found a metal that conducts electricity but not heat (sciencealert.org)

[eppur_se_muova]

FIONA MACDONALD
28 JAN 2017

Researchers have identified a metal that conducts electricity without conducting heat - an incredibly useful property that defies our current understanding of how conductors work.

The metal contradicts something called the Wiedemann-Franz Law, which basically states that good conductors of electricity will also be proportionally good conductors of heat, which is why things like motors and appliances get so hot when you use them regularly.

But a team in the US has shown that this isn't the case for metallic vanadium dioxide (VO2) - a material that's already well known for its strange ability to switch from a see-through insulator to a conductive metal at the temperature of 67 degrees Celsius (152 degrees Fahrenheit).

"This was a totally unexpected finding," said lead researcher Junqiao Wu, from Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division.

"It shows a drastic breakdown of a textbook law that has been known to be robust for conventional conductors. This discovery is of fundamental importance for understanding the basic electronic behaviour of novel conductors."
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more: http://www.sciencealert.com/physicists-have-found-a-metal-that-conducts-electricity-but-not-heat?perpetual=yes&limitstart=1
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/371 (abstract; full paper behind paywall)




Try not to laugh at the second paragraph.

[TexasProgresive]

1. The 2nd paragraph shows an ignorance of the science by the writer.

Electrical devices get hot because the conductors are not perfect. The resistance to current flow generates heat. Now this new conductor may not conduct heat very well but unless it is the mythical perfect conductor it will make heat which will radiated out. Since it doesn't conduct heat it will be difficult to draw that heat away with a heat sink. Ultimately temperature will rise above 67 C and it will conduct the heat to a sink.

The increase of knowledge of how things work is vital. It doesn't matter if there is a practical use because it helps us to get a better picture of, in this case, physics.

I am not a scientists but often these science writers are really ignorant of their subject, much like journalists.

[Lithos]

2. There is a difference between science writers and journalists

Science writers have an excuse that it's hard to write about complicated things - journalists very rarely have a complicated thing except when they are trying to excuse some behavior for political means (creating alternative facts)

[TexasProgresive]

3. I have a problem with people writing without thinking it through.

It's a case of not fact checking and just writing what makes sense to them- when it is wrong. Alt-facts, Alt-news and Alt-science.