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The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

arxiv.org

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

#151

Post by botro »

moh_maya wrote: post #91
svnt wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two of the authors are the same. A little odd.

I mean- not really? They have developed / synthesized the material, and they collaborated with another lab that had the skills and equipment to conduct and interpret specific experimental techniques and results. Fairly common, especially in life sciences, and I suspect chemistry and materials science. Added in edit: This doesn’t make the result any more or less credible; for that, the true test is independent replica…

I think they also make mention of the other paper in the one being discussed, pages 12,13:

"The Additional experimental results and discussions on LK-99 will be published immediately in the next paper, including an interesting controllable levitation phenomenon and the coexistence of magnetism and superconductivity, theoretical calculation, etc."

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

#152

Post by CamperBob2 »

scarmig wrote: post #148
coolspot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure Is it late April Fools joke? It can’t be true. Edit: I am not surprised it levitates. I am astonished by how much it will reshape our world if it is real room-temp and ambient-pressure superconductor. Also is easy to produce. Just too good to be true.

Levitation is to be expected for any superconductor when it's in a superconducting state; that part is banal. The big question is whether it's actually a superconductor at RTP. Their results are strong enough that it's unlikely to be a mistake, though fraud is possible too (although it is so easily uncovered given the simplicity of preparing the material and the strength of the reported effects that fraud seems almos…

The recipe in the paper is so simple that it's giving me Pons-Fleischmann vibes. It reads more like an entry from an alchemist's journal, reproducible with chemicals and equipment you could buy on eBay or Amazon.

So, yeah: big if true.

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

#154

Post by amluto »

zenexer wrote: post #131
coolspot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure Is it late April Fools joke? It can’t be true. Edit: I am not surprised it levitates. I am astonished by how much it will reshape our world if it is real room-temp and ambient-pressure superconductor. Also is easy to produce. Just too good to be true.

Superconductors will typically levitate if placed above a magnet, and vice versa. Magnets are weird --superconductors even more so. I assume that's what they were referring to? Edit: Judging by Fig 4, which has a large object conspicuously labeled "magnet", that's probably what they're referring to.

This whole experiment is quite reminiscent of an experiment I did in high school. We synthesized a high temperature superconductor (IIRC it was YBCO) by grinding some powders together with a mortal and pestle and baking the result. And we stuck it in a little cup of LN2 and floated a magnet on it. It really works!

This group used somewhat nastier powders, they had to cook parts of it in a vacuum, and they floated the result on a magnet instead of vice versa. And it only floated a bit. But they did it without any cooling!

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

#155

Post by sudosysgen »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #144
postmortembees wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if your PC did not need cooling, because it generated no heat? How much more potent could computers be?

It probably wouldn't greatly affect the heat generation in a PC, unless the transistors could themselves be replaced with some superconducting alternative. Harnessing the efficiency from that would probably require that the computer be designed as a reversible computer. It would be its own research avenue.

Unfortunately, as soon as you actually use the result of the computation in any kind of practical manner as an output, you break reversibility, though you could make the heat production happen away from the computation.

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

#156

Post by Workaccount2 »

carabiner wrote: post #113
slashdev wrote: post #21

This is an unreviewed preprint coming out of South Korea. If it’s reproducible it would be the biggest scientific discovery of the last hundred years. It will literally reshape the world. However, the most likely thing is they made a mistake and the paper will be withdrawn. But imagine if it’s true.

South Korea has been desperate for a Nobel prize for a long time. Don't be surprised if they jumped the gun for a false exciting result for national pride.

You're not gonna get a noble prize for unverified results.

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

#157

Post by amluto »

rwmj wrote: post #78
eterevsky wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the biggest scientific discovery of the last hundred years I would say that electronic computers would take take the first spot for me, but I don't deny that room-temperature superconductors would be pretty close to the top.

This (or something derived from it) would be used for power delivery literally everywhere in the world. It might well be bigger in scale and volume than all the computers.

Dunno. A fancy tape or such made out of lead compounds would be a hard sell in comparison to ordinary copper for household wiring.

But yes, for serious uses, this will be a big deal if it works out and can be made into a flexible cable. And I’m sure people will work on a less-toxic version.

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

#158

Post by soperj »

nine_k wrote: post #126
benlivengood wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically you could lay undersea superconducting cables around the world and rely on a global electrical grid which allows for nearly 100% solar generation. Superconducting magnets become cheap and widely available which allows for maglev trains at massive scale. Costs for the LHC and similar experiments would drop dramatically. MRIs would only require air conditioning, if that; Modern cell phones are sufficient t…

I think not just maglev: a lot of typical bearings could possibly be switched from ball / roll to maglev, saving a lot on friction and maintenance. Undersea cables are a pie in the sky; current high-load cables in urban an industrial areas could be made much smaller, simpler, and lossless. I wonder if transformers, currently huge and expensive, could be made better with this, too; at least the ohmic losses could be r…

Why would you need transformers if you can send it losslessly?

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

#159

Post by carabiner »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #156
carabiner wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea has been desperate for a Nobel prize for a long time. Don't be surprised if they jumped the gun for a false exciting result for national pride.

You're not gonna get a noble prize for unverified results.

Ya no shit. Desperation makes people do dumb things.

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

#160

Post by megaman821 »

Mizza wrote: post #130
floxy wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's hope so. The easiest way to convince the world that you have a room temperature superconductor is to make up a big batch of samples and offer to distribute them to national labs for testing. First test, does it levitate a small permanent magnet, demonstrating diamagnetism?

They have photographs of that on page 7 of the sister paper: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/2307/2307.12037.pdf Would love 3rd party confirmation as well, of course. Edit: Here's a video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtVjGWpbE7k

Partially levitating on the magnet seems kinda convincing. None of those materials would do that on their own.
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