Superconductors in Hollywood

 Recently my wife and I watched the movie, Joe Versus the Volcano, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. What I did not expect was that making superconductors commercially viable was central to the (silly but amusing) plot. 

The plot summary on Wikipedia says

a wealthy industrialist named Samuel Graynamore needs "bubaru", a mineral essential for manufacturing superconductors. There are deposits of it on the tiny Pacific island of Waponi Woo, but the resident Waponis will only let him mine it if he solves a problem for them...

Here is the relevant scene...

The movie was made in 1990, just after the discovery of cuprate superconductors and at that time there was a lot of hype about commercialisation. I wonder if the scriptwriters drew on that.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 2, 2024 at 9:47 AM

    The movie Avatar involves humans seeking the room-temperature superconductor mineral from the alien moon. They even show a chunk of it levitating.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ross H. McKenzieApril 23, 2024 at 7:47 PM

    Very nice. Thanks. It is called unobtanium. Here is a clip of it.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypif7glb1VU

    ReplyDelete

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