On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Kelly St. Clair <kellys@efn.org> wrote:
> On 6/13/2014 10:10 AM, Jeffrey Schwartz wrote:
>
>> If you've got the ability to make room temp superconductors, I can see
>> them developing highly super-magnetocaloric materials.
>> You'd let the material heat up (ie, lots of molecular motion) and then
>> push electric current through it, and lock the molecules in place,
>> thus making heat "stop"
>
>
> Cute, but the /other/ Three Laws* tell me, 1, that heat has to go SOMEWHERE,
> and 2, generating the current will inevitably produce MORE heat.
>

I'm not sure that the heat has to go SOMEWHERE per se - I think that
if the 'sink' were hotter, it'd just use more current to 'cool'.
Which, indirectly, means more heat at the generation source, which
leads to your point 2.

I kinda wonder if a ship masses enough that the hull being
magnetocaloric would make a difference.
(This kinda reminds me of the "coherent" aspect at high tech levels. )
But the direction I'm thinking is more and more power is pushed into
the hull to 'cool' it, and you plan for diminishing returns.
Eventually, you go skim a gas giant, go slow to avoid atmospheric
heating, and slowly ramp down the power used to cool the hull. The
bound heat slowly unbinds, and dumps to the atmo.
Eventually, you're putting minimal power to the 'cool', and the cycle
can begin again.

Kinda also half-reminds me of Stutterwarp and the 'release the charge' thing

> (* Which I still remember in the form of a song from "The Wiz":  "You can't
> win child, you can't break even, you can't get out of the game.")

And that reminds me of my first job... sigh.