Perpetual Games?

If room temperature superconductors were produced, could you theoretically power something complicated and power hungry like a games console, PC or TV forever, by plugging it into the mains once to give it enogh current, if all of its components were made from superconductors?
- Ross (age 16)
Northampton, England

No, it turns out you can't if the device has any sort of light-emitting display that uses energy. More fundamentally, all the switching involved in any computation intrinsically requires the generation of heat, at least at any point where memory is 'forgotten'. Use of superconducting components could reduce the wasted energy, however.

Mike W.

(published on 05/16/2013)