Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 906 posts

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#31

Post by danbruc »

After skimming the paper, it reads like a legitimate paper even though I have zero expertise in the area. That it is in Word instead of LaTeX makes it feel a bit less legitimate to me and they could of course always have some error in there setup.

The most notable thing to me was that this was done in a thin film where structural defects are supposedly responsible for strain in the material which in turn enables the superconductivity. Probably because it is only a thin film, the material could only support about 250 mA at 25°C before losing superconductivity. So even if the paper is correct, it might turn out to be challenging to get to higher currents. Or maybe not and one could just roll up a wide thin film and have as much amps as one likes.

EDIT: I misread the thin film thing, they also produced a thin film but primarily they describe the material testes as follows without any dimensions I could immediatly spot.

After the reaction, a dark gray ingot was obtained reproducibly and then made into the shape of thin cuboids for electrical measurements [...]

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#32

Post by tyre »

mightykipper wrote: post #5
Akronymus wrote: post #2

I severly doubt that it is an actual room temperature superconductor, but would love to hear the opinions of more well informed people on that topic.

127°C, so it is room temperature if you first set your room alight.

All server farms are now in Death Valley.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#34

Post by postmortembees »

danbruc wrote: post #31

After skimming the paper, it reads like a legitimate paper even though I have zero expertise in the area. That it is in Word instead of LaTeX makes it feel a bit less legitimate to me and they could of course always have some error in there setup. The most notable thing to me was that this was done in a thin film where structural defects are supposedly responsible for strain in the material which in turn enables the…

Yeah, it seems like (to me, a naive layperson) to be similar to how a prince rupert's drop exerts strong forces thanks to the mechanism of its cooling/shape. The copper somehow forcing other structures to form in an atypical way which enables the superconductivity.

And even at 250mA, there'd be tons of different usecases for a superconductor.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#35

Post by dspillett »

scarmig wrote: post #24
dspillett wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes me even more sceptical. In recent years confirmed discovery of superconducting materials have gone from working at best up to ~100K below room temperature to at best a few 10s of K below. To jump to a material that claims to exhibit superconductivity as far as >100K above room temperature, at ambient pressure too, is an extraordinary claim and so needs to be presented with extraordinary evidence.

I mean, the paper has experimental results and it should be easily reproducible by pretty much any lab. Do you think they should be hopping on CNN to give a public demonstration with the announcement? If a material with the properties described actually exists, this paper is exactly the kind of announcement and evidence we'd want for it.

No, I agree with you that a quiet “this is what we've found, this is what we think it means, please reproduce or tell us if you find something we've misinterpreted”, rather than a public fanfare, is how a potential scientific breakthrough should be done IMO.

I think I cross-pollinated this thread with another where someone was asking “if this is true why isn't it on the front pages”. The extraordinary evidence I'd want before it hits the front pages and TV talk shows is other scientific/engineering groups managing to reproduce the findings, or at least showing a significant improvement over previous discoveries (there could be a mistake that means the result isn't that big a thing while still leaving room for it to be a significant finding).

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#36

Post by ridgeguy »

foxhill wrote: post #6

big if true. far from a chemistry expert here, but synthesis looks basically trivial (if you consider 10e-5 torr vacuum to be trivial), and the materials are readily available. hell, from the instructions alone i could probably make it at home. i mean the search space is unfathomably large, so i suppose it’s possible that something like this exists, but the paper quality itself doesn’t.. spark joy? :) i’ll maintain a…

I've looked briefly at the materials synthesis (first part of their Supplementary Materials section). I agree with you, the synthesis is trivial. The 10e-5 vacuum is easily reached with a turbopump backed by a mechanical pump, nothing exotic or expensive.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#37

Post by generalizations »

danbruc wrote: post #31

After skimming the paper, it reads like a legitimate paper even though I have zero expertise in the area. That it is in Word instead of LaTeX makes it feel a bit less legitimate to me and they could of course always have some error in there setup. The most notable thing to me was that this was done in a thin film where structural defects are supposedly responsible for strain in the material which in turn enables the…

How much is latex used for papers outside of computer science? Medical researchers I know generally used word for their papers.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#38

Post by BariumBlue »

Ohh ... this could actually be relatively big. From abstract: "The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage"

There was previously research done investigating how changes in atomic structural alignment affect superconductivity (such as by cooling). I think researchers were trying to maintain the spacing that superconductors had while cool even when it was heated up. This sounds line with that other research, though I can't find the article again, please correct me if you find otherwise.

Still likely to be rather fragile and temperamental to work with ... but this seems like it's possibly legit.

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#39

Post by barelyauser »

postmortembees wrote: post #34
danbruc wrote: post #31

After skimming the paper, it reads like a legitimate paper even though I have zero expertise in the area. That it is in Word instead of LaTeX makes it feel a bit less legitimate to me and they could of course always have some error in there setup. The most notable thing to me was that this was done in a thin film where structural defects are supposedly responsible for strain in the material which in turn enables the…

Yeah, it seems like (to me, a naive layperson) to be similar to how a prince rupert's drop exerts strong forces thanks to the mechanism of its cooling/shape. The copper somehow forcing other structures to form in an atypical way which enables the superconductivity. And even at 250mA, there'd be tons of different usecases for a superconductor.

It is not limited to 250mA overall. A physically larger specimen would be capable of more current.
Post reply on HN