Lab Book 2014_05_14 YBCO levitation, Glass Dewar Mechanics, and Relativistic Projectile Trajectories
Lab Book 2014_05_14 Hamilton Carter Summary Tested the larger of the two YBCO superconductors by trying out three different levitation demonstrations. Ran into a hitch when preparing to vacuum test the glass Dewar. The glass stopcock valve to the vacuum jacket is stuck shut! Unbeknownst to me, you can replace glass valves! Did a bit of theory work looking at hyperbolic trajectories of relativistic particles and how they compare to the trajectories of projectiles with air resistance. Lab Work: YBCO Rough Characterization The YBCO superconductor was levitation tested. Although it’s not a quantitative measure, it seems to be levitating magnets as well as it ever did. I ran a series of three demonstrations showing the different types of field cooling/levitation. In the first experiment, the superconductor was cooled without the magnet present. Since the sample was very well constructed using a crystal me...