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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Cringely, post: 977018, member: 22271&quot;]The reason silver was used at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project was that copper was a critical war material. Since the room temperature electrical resistivity of copper and silver are almost the same, the Treasury Department loaned the Manhattan Project sufficient silver to wind hundreds (if not thousands) of room temperature coil magnets that ware able to generate the tesla strength magnetic fields necessary for magnetic separation of isotopes. After WWII, the silver magnets were melted down and the silver returned to the Treasury Department. Who knows, some of the metal used in your early date Franklin half dollar may have helped win WWII.</p><p><br /></p><p>As I recall, silver is not a superconductor. Even at 0.001 K, silver is resistive and any current passing through a silver wire will generate heat and exhibit a voltage loss across the wire.</p><p>The superconductor used in MRI, accelerator and tokamak magnets is Nb3Sn. Silver can be used as a passivating surface for high temperature superconductors such as YBCO, but it does not contribute to any superconducting properties.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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