Talk:Chrysoprase

The Name

There seem to be so many alternative spellings floating around that nobody - not even Terry - seems absolutely certain of how to spell it...

Superconductivity

Is it just me or has Terry got it wrong? Chrysoprase gets more intelligent the colder he gets BUT if his brain is primarily Silicon... semiconductors stop working when they are cold, they don't superconduct.

MARK

A few points:

• They don't need to superconduct.
• We're used to semiconductors working happily in the lowest temperatures on earth (or, say, in the Pork Futures Warehouse) and even in outer space. The sort of temperature where electrons don't have enough energy to be shifted is hard to find.
• You may be looking at it backwards. The troll brain gets slower as it heats; it's a complex system like a computer processor which suffers the same problems and needs to slow down if it overheats. Lowering the temperature near absolute zero probably wouldn't make it infinitely efficient. --Old Dickens 17:30, 27 December 2010 (CET)