The Current That Never Stops: Superconductivity from Leiden to Nickelates

Deep End Era. Engineering with Sankalp · Oct 28, 2026 · 59m

In a hospital basement, a current set flowing eleven years ago is still circulating through kilometres of wire with nothing driving it. Episode one hundred and thirty eight explains how: from the race to liquefy helium and a mercury thread whose resistance fell off a cliff in 1911, through the magnetic expulsion that is superconductivity's true signature and the Cooper pairs that took forty six years to explain, to ceramics that work in liquid nitrogen and hydrides that superconduct at freezer temperatures inside diamond vices. We look hard at the claims that failed, a retracted…