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Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

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

#31

Post by LordHeini »

TekMol wrote: post #20
catboybotnet wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Why would the electrons spread evenly?

They move over to the other side and back and forth resulting in an oscillator.

That causes all your energy being radiated into the surrounding via radio waves.

That is how your microwave oven works but instead of a superconductor it uses a magnetron with free flowing electrons.

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

#32

Post by mrtksn »

It appears that the development and the consequent publication was driven by vanity, that is the researchers really really wanted to claim the glory for their invention.

Why I say this? The events of publishing, retracting and re-publishing the original paper happen over drama among the people involved with the discovery.

It also appears that that the development wasn't a smooth sail as would a conspiracy may theorists like to describe technological innovations. They had hard dime finding funding and people who believe in them, so having this great epiphany in 1999 then working with the governments to develop it is not a realistic scenario at all. Instead, they grinded for 2 decades and finally got something good enough to show for. Even then, their discovery is still under heavy scrutiny and it might turn out to be a dud(Although, at this point I would bet that they are onto something real).

Here is a thread on the history of the development of the substance: https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1685641634892128256

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

#33

Post by sidpatil »

XorNot wrote: post #22

Because the world does not work like conspiracy theorists think it does. Science is never obviously a breakthrough, people like to talk about and get credit for cool stuff they do, and revolutionary technology isn't necessarily of any benefit if no one knows about it. This is like asking why the US government didn't keep the transistor a secret: because the transistor is of no use to anyone until people made micropro…

> because the transistor is of no use to anyone until people made microprocessors with it

What? That's not true at all. Discrete transistors are absolutely useful in a massive range of analog electronics. Open up any electronic device from the 1970s, and you're likely to find transistors — and unlikely to find microprocessors.

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

#34

Post by throw_a_grenade »

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…

> How much of the heat a CPU expells is inevitable?

There's a lower theoretical limit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle

> Could (non-reversible) calculations be done without creating any heat?

Thermodynamics says no.

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

#35

Post by [deleted] »

LordHeini wrote: post #26
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…

Well CPU's are made of transistors. So one could ask if it is possible to make a transistor out of a superconductor. The answer is yes. It is possible to quench a superconductor with an external magnetic field for example and make it an insulator. These things actually do exist but i forgot the name. But switching that field still requires energy. So while it is possible to build such a CPU there would be still energ…

[deleted]

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

#36

Post by htfu »

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.

This is some kind of a simplified view of how a battery works. It is not how an electric field functions.

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

#37

Post by XorNot »

varjag wrote: post #30
XorNot wrote: post #22

Because the world does not work like conspiracy theorists think it does. Science is never obviously a breakthrough, people like to talk about and get credit for cool stuff they do, and revolutionary technology isn't necessarily of any benefit if no one knows about it. This is like asking why the US government didn't keep the transistor a secret: because the transistor is of no use to anyone until people made micropro…

Nitpick: transistors were broadly used before microprocessors and still have thousands of uses that have nothing to do with computers.

Of course: but the point remains, the transistor by itself wasn't really useful - certainly not the first transistor.

It took the resources and creativity of a nation to figure out what it could do, and to make it cheap enough for its advantages to create revolutionary technology with it: otherwise vacuum tubes "would do" - and did - for a very long time.

A secret program of transistorized electronics would've been of no use at all: since all the advantages came from making them ubiquitous and cheap.

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

#38

Post by baq »

gambiting wrote: post #27
TekMol wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Nowhere, it's still there - a loop of superconducting wire would also be a perfect energy storage because the electrons would just keep going around without any loss(it would be an extremely small capacity storage though, superconductors lose their superconductivity at high enough amperage which is basically what introducting more energy into the system would be).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energ...

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

#39

Post by nielsole »

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…

8. Patents have been granted and can be monetised independently of publication.

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

#40

Post by bandrami »

TekMol wrote: post #20
catboybotnet wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

That's not how electric current works. It's more like a wave in an ocean. A wave may travel from Hawaii to California but no actual water molecule moves that far (or even very much at all). Electric current is a wave of excitation of electrons, which is what moves at the speed of light. The actual drift of individual electrons in the current is much, much slower (and IIRC in a superconductor is zero).
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