CLC: superconductivity is a function of molecular alignments

It's possible that superconductivity comes from a perfect alignment of atoms, which is only achieved very near absolute zero.

 

Imagine an infinitely long row of billiard balls, and imagine throwing another ball very fast down that line, such that it skips over the top of the row, just barely knicking each one. At a fast rate, gravity doesn't have the time to have a dramatic effect on the path of the ball. So it contacts the balls in the row at a point that is almost exactly tangent to the line of travel, meaning that the moving ball isn't slowed down much by the contacts.

 

But what if the row isn't perfectly straight? The moving ball will hit the ones that are sticking up, causing it to deflect off at an angle. Then gravity pulls it back down, and it hits another one at an angle, and flies off at an angle again. Now the moving ball is traveling in a zig-zag path, and its net forward speed is much slower, even if its absolute speed is the same.

 

Now imagine an electron zipping along the valence band of a conductor. If the conductor is hot, there's no telling exactly where the atoms are going to be, given the random motion of hot atoms, and some of them will be out of line. Those will dissipate the speed of the electron by causing it to deflect at an angle, instead of skimming right on to the next atom. But if all of the atoms are virtually stopped, and in their closest packed arrangement, none of the atoms will be out of line. Thus no resistance.