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Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#11

Post by G4E »

jl6 wrote: post #7

I'm just a bystander with no understanding of the specifics, but there are lots of general reasons why it might happen this way: 1. The discovery was in a university research context, where publishing results is normal practice. 2. Maybe publication was mandated by the funding source. 3. Maybe it's not yet certain that it's a breakthrough and they want more eyes on it to help validate. 4. Maybe they want to be public…

Thank you for your response. You are right that my phrasing implied a bit too much conspiracy. That was not really my intention, but I was curious to have experts views on those hypothetis.

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#12

Post by TekMol »

jackweirdy wrote: post #9
TekMol wrote: post #6

Im still trying to wrap my head around superconductors. When energy flows from one and of a wire made from a superconductor to the other end, then no heat is produced? Where did the energy go then? If CPUs were made from material without resistance, would they stay cold? How much of the heat a CPU expells is inevitable? Could (non-reversible) calculations be done without creating any heat? If yes, where did the energ…

(Edit - the question is now different so my comment is stale) My understanding is power is expended when current flows through a metal with resistance, and that loss is in the form of heat. The lower the resistance, the lower the loss and therefore lower the heat

But you do lose energy as current flows.

When you start with 10 elecrons on the left of the wire and none on the right and end up with 5 on both sides, you lost all energy that was stored in the system.

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#13

Post by catboybotnet »

TekMol wrote: post #6

Im still trying to wrap my head around superconductors. When energy flows from one and of a wire made from a superconductor to the other end, then no heat is produced? Where did the energy go then? If CPUs were made from material without resistance, would they stay cold? How much of the heat a CPU expells is inevitable? Could (non-reversible) calculations be done without creating any heat? If yes, where did the energ…

>Where did the energy go then?

Through the circuit. Heat is energy loss.

The heat comes from the resistance. No resistance, no heat. To be more specific, the heat is from the kinetic energy of electrons bumping into the conductive material; no collision no heat.

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#14

Post by beardyw »

Qem wrote: post #5

It appears one of the discoverers feared he wouldn't be properly credited, and rushed the publication. See https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/15b27wn/the_st... Perhaps his fears were founded. A few hours later in fact his name was suppressed in a second version of the paper.

A theory I read was that because at most 3 people can share a Nobel prize, one rushed it out naming just two others. Subsequent versions have named about 8.

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#15

Post by doctor_eval »

TekMol wrote: post #6

Im still trying to wrap my head around superconductors. When energy flows from one and of a wire made from a superconductor to the other end, then no heat is produced? Where did the energy go then? If CPUs were made from material without resistance, would they stay cold? How much of the heat a CPU expells is inevitable? Could (non-reversible) calculations be done without creating any heat? If yes, where did the energ…

I guess calculations are done using semiconductors. So you could perhaps get energy to a transistor without heat, but the transistor itself is not a superconductor and will still emit heat.

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#16

Post by desmond1303 »

TekMol wrote: post #12
jackweirdy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Edit - the question is now different so my comment is stale) My understanding is power is expended when current flows through a metal with resistance, and that loss is in the form of heat. The lower the resistance, the lower the loss and therefore lower the heat

But you do lose energy as current flows. When you start with 10 elecrons on the left of the wire and none on the right and end up with 5 on both sides, you lost all energy that was stored in the system.

The mind-blowing thing is that electrons, as far as I understand it, don't actually flow through wires at all. If they did AC power would be pointless

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#18

Post by m-i-l »

mrabcx wrote: post #4

The Wikipedia page lists the publication history, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK-99#Publication_history and the initial paper and patent history go back to 2020.

And according to Wikipedia LK-99 was "discovered" back in 1999, hence the name. It isn't clear if it was also first manufactured back then, but assuming it was, 24 years does seem an awfully long time to notice these allegedly simple signs of room temperature super-conductivity (e.g. if you put a magnet near it then it is said to float as per Meissner effect).

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#19

Post by actionfromafar »

desmond1303 wrote: post #16
TekMol wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you do lose energy as current flows. When you start with 10 elecrons on the left of the wire and none on the right and end up with 5 on both sides, you lost all energy that was stored in the system.

The mind-blowing thing is that electrons, as far as I understand it, don't actually flow through wires at all. If they did AC power would be pointless

Well they do but very slowly. With AC they just wiggle left and right.

Re: Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

#20

Post by TekMol »

catboybotnet wrote: post #13
TekMol wrote: post #6

Im still trying to wrap my head around superconductors. When energy flows from one and of a wire made from a superconductor to the other end, then no heat is produced? Where did the energy go then? If CPUs were made from material without resistance, would they stay cold? How much of the heat a CPU expells is inevitable? Could (non-reversible) calculations be done without creating any heat? If yes, where did the energ…

>Where did the energy go then? Through the circuit. Heat is energy loss. The heat comes from the resistance. No resistance, no heat. To be more specific, the heat is from the kinetic energy of electrons bumping into the conductive material; no collision no heat.

Lets make a simple Gedankenspiel with only a wire made from LK-99 and a bunch of electrons sitting on the left end of the wire.

After a moment, the electrons will be spread out evenly through the wire, right?

So after a moment, the energy that was stored in the system (When all electrons were on the left) is lost.

If no heat is emitted, where did the energy go?

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