1. Superconductivity — conducts electricity perfectly, magnetic fields are excluded from the interior of the object (Meissner effect). The soon-to-open Large Hadron Collider will use superconducting magnets to accelerate subatomic particles to 99% the speed of light. In the near future, superconducting materials will decrease the necessary size of large engines, such as those on aircraft carriers, by a factor of 3-4. Some scientists believe that the future discovery of a room-temperature superconductor will launch a new industrial revolution.

2. Superfluidity — zero viscosity, zero entropy, infinite thermal conductivity, “creeps” up surfaces, shows quantum effects at the macroscopic level, such as behaving like a single “superatom”. 645 gallons of superfluid helium were used to cool Gravity Probe B, an orbiter designed to test Einstein’s theories about the curvature of spacetime. When rotated in a canister, a superfluid can only move at certain quantized, discrete speed levels.

3. Superlubricity — practically zero friction observed in eggshell-shaped configurations of crystal. Might be used to create frictionless gears for nanomachines. Has been measured using the extremely sensitive Friction Force Microscope. The phenomenon of superlubricity is very new, only investigated seriously in the last few years. The image below shows regions on a crystal surface displaying superlubricity.

4. Supersonic — faster than sound. “Hypersonic” refers to something traveling more than 5 times faster than sound, or Mach 5. The Earth’s escape velocity is about Mach 24. When a plane or rocket exceeds the speed of sound, it produces the famous “sonic boom”, which may exceed 200 decibels. A team of British engineers wants to build a commercial plane that travels at Mach 5, twice as fast as the Concorde. At that speed, the trip from Brussels to Australia would take less than five hours, passing over the North Pole. Scramjets have a top speed between Mach 12 and Mach 24.

5. Supercriticality — a phase of matter that has properties of both a solid and gas. The picture below shows an aerogel, not a supercritical fluid itself but produced using one. Superfluids have zero surface tension, and are only created at high pressures. By tuning the pressure and temperature of a supercritical fluid, engineers can make it behave more like a liquid or a gas, including manipulating its ability to dissolve other materials. At the surface of Venus, temperature and pressure are sufficient to make the entire atmospheric base a supercritical fluid. Creating superfluid water requires a temperature of 704 °F and a pressure of 218 atmospheres.

6. Superluminal — faster than light. In special relativity, while you cannot accelerate an object to the speed of light — that requires infinite energy input — nothing forbids the existence of something that always moves faster than light. Such a hypothetical particle is called a tachyon, and experiments are underway to find them. According to the theory of cosmic inflation, during the first fraction of a second of the universe’s existence, space itself expanded many times faster than light. This is possible because nothing within space would actually move superluminally, just the spacetime fabric itself. In astronomy, certain phenomena such as relativistic jets appear to move superluminally due to an optical illusion.

Other supers in physics: supergravity, superstrings, supersolids.