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Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

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

#51

Post by vbezhenar »

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…

> 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?

Just to make an analogue. Imagine that you're stitched some reactive engine to some cart without wheels and trying to move it. Lots of friction, so lots of energy will convert to heat. That's basically insulator. Need a lot of energy to go through it.

Now you add wheels to the cart. Well, it moves quickly now. Though still you have some friction and some heat. That's conductor.

Next: you add wings and don't need wheels after lift-off. Only air friction. Still some energy converts to heat, but speed and efficiency much higher. That's copper, one of the best conductors.

Now remove air, you're in the space. Well, no friction, you can accelerate as much as you want. So this is superconductor in a nutshell.

There's nothing fundamental about resistance. Yes, most elements are not superconductors, but some are superconductors and they require not very exotic conditions. So there's nothing groundbreaking about inventing room-temperature superconductors, physics won't be rewritten because of that. But lots of practical applications, of course, so it's incredible useful invention if true.

I don't know how much CPU efficiency can we squeeze theoretically. There will be losses, even if everything is superconducting. Radio waves, for example. And it's not clear if it's possible to make everything superconducting.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

LordHeini wrote: post #31
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?

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.

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by optimalsolver »

MrPatan wrote: post #17
addandsubtract wrote: post #8

Thankfully, scientific research is one of the last bastions not completely overrun by capitalism.

If the rock floats, it will be the biggest indictment against the current way of doing research you can possibly imagine.

Could you elaborate?

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

#54

Post by ahmadmijot »

Heliosmaster wrote: post #46
ahmadmijot wrote: post #24

If I'm not mistaken it's not that they 'published' the finding as in 'publish in a peer-reviewed article' but more like depositing pre-print in a database (arXiv) for not yet peer-review journal.

it's simply not published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it is published on arXiv, as per definition of 'publishing', i.e. "the business of making books, magazines, or newspapers available to the public" ( https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/publishi... )

True, but in academia and R&D, when researchers talk about "publications" they always refer to peer-reviewed journal publication unless stated otherwise.

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

#55

Post by doubleg72 »

XorNot wrote: post #37
varjag wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

"the transistor by itself wasn't really useful"

Not to sound like an ass, and I know it is early yet here on the East coast of the US, but damn this is the most ignorant thing I have read on the internet all day! Not sure what hole you need to have your head up to not realize the impacts of the transistor that don't involve the microprocessor.

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

#56

Post by TMWNN »

armchairhacker wrote: post #23

Well, it was leaked so… Also, we have no clue if the US or other military has already discovered and been using this and for how long. I feel it was going to get out eventually. If you’re using a room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor for things which require room-temperature ambient-pressure superconducting, unless you conceal that you actually need it, people are going to realize. And once the existence i…

>Also, we have no clue if the US or other military has already discovered and been using this and for how long.

Highly relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36967333> and https://np.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/15fy1xw/superconductor...>

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

#57

Post by P_I_Staker »

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…

Tiny radios? You might not care, but back in the day it was the bees knees.

It's always shocking to me how software centric this site is. Everyone here thinks the world revolves around software and electrical engineering didn't exist before, just like it doesn't exist now ;)

Transistor was pretty quickly useful, I think. Integrated circuits took quite a while to catch on. Integrated circuits were available for some time before microprocessors. Microprocessors were arguable available for a long time before they became revolutionary to the average joe.

You could argue that the transistor was a bigger deal than the move to ICs & Microprocessors. You better believe everyone knew how great they were when they got their hands on a radio... it's an iconic moment in technical history.

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

#58

Post by P_I_Staker »

XorNot wrote: post #37
varjag wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Vacuum tubes suck, and everyone knew it at the time. The transistor itself was one of the single most intrinsically useful inventions ever.

It seems you have an extremely biased and narrow perspective on technology.

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

#59

Post by XorNot »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #57
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…

Tiny radios? You might not care, but back in the day it was the bees knees. It's always shocking to me how software centric this site is. Everyone here thinks the world revolves around software and electrical engineering didn't exist before, just like it doesn't exist now ;) Transistor was pretty quickly useful, I think. Integrated circuits took quite a while to catch on. Integrated circuits were available for some t…

"when they got their hands on it".

The transistor was a big deal when people could use it to solve problems. When an ecosystem around it existed.

But it wasn't going to revolutionise anything if it was kept a secret like is being implied with superconductors like the topic title is asking.

I could've been more precise in my language, but the point was that the big revolution of transistorized technology - the game changing stuff - came much further down the line then the original invention.

A small supply of secret transistors wasn't going to give anyone a massive technological advantage.

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

#60

Post by P_I_Staker »

doubleg72 wrote: post #55
XorNot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

"the transistor by itself wasn't really useful" Not to sound like an ass, and I know it is early yet here on the East coast of the US, but damn this is the most ignorant thing I have read on the internet all day! Not sure what hole you need to have your head up to not realize the impacts of the transistor that don't involve the microprocessor.

This is harsh, but I agree. It's baffling to me that he doesn't seem to understand this point. WTF.

I've gotten in trouble on hackernews pointing this stuff out, but this is a MASSIVE cultural problem on this site! All these SW nerds just baffled that anything exists outside their universe. (and I'm sw too)

The transistor was such an immediately obviously useful invention, it immediately became the toast of the town AT LEAST a decade before the first microprocessor.

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