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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?

#831

Post by HackOfAllTrades »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #494
andreiklochko wrote: post #389

Guys, even if everything in this paper is true, the material as it is might have limited applications. From what they show, the critical field and critical current seem very low. 2500 Oe is like 0.25 Tesla. Even REBCO at 77K is >1T. And 2500 Oe is not even at critical temperature but much lower. From skimming through the article I couldn't find the sample size of the current measurement to get the critical current de…

How powerful is the magnetic field in typical brushless motor? Even if it can’t be used for an MRI machine, it could do wonders for efficient (and/or compact) robotics and electric vehicles. I’m also very curious what kind of inductors you could make for switching power supplies using superconductors.

Can't wait to replace all the resistors in my PSU with SuperConducting Resistors. :-)

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

#832

Post by petsfed »

Mindwipe wrote: post #805
giarc wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are two I see mentioned the most often (MRI and maglevs). To be honest though, those are great things to improve (especially the MRI), however, the amount of hype in this thread and on the internet tells me there must be more than just improved MRI and better trains....

If we can find one with the right material properties it makes long distance movement of power generation much more plausible and economical. Which would enable us to put a lot of solar power in the desert and move it around effectively to other places on Earth. Again, with the right material properties it could also produce efficient storage, and that also has huge implications for electrical generation.

I got into superconductors shortly after the Fukushima disaster, and it was the poster child for superconductors in transmission lines. One of the perks back then was that you could put these reactors that are sensitive to earthquakes and the like out where they are relatively safe from such things. You can also have fewer, higher output power stations, so fewer municipalities have to operate smaller power plants (which tend to be coal or natural gas).

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

#833

Post by tills13 »

traverseda wrote: post #82
telltruth wrote: post #71

Could someone explain why is this world changing?

Superconductors are basically perfectly conductive wire. Wires that transfer 100% of power over arbitrary distances and that don't heat up. Obviously there are limits, you can't put arbitrary power over a hair thin filament but as long as you're under that limit you get perfect efficiency. MRI machines can be made a lot simpler as you no longer need to use liquid nitrogen to cool the superconductors. MRI machines cou…

Don't forget about computer chips that do not emit heat. So much wasted power at the datacenter scale simply to keep things cool. At a personal computer level things get way more efficient, too, resulting in cheaper, smaller, quieter computing devices.

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

#834

Post by tills13 »

postmortembees wrote: post #124
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Superconductors change every assumption about how we harness electricity and magnetism. Beyond reducing the cost of electricity transmission, they enable all sorts of fascinating applications: - They enable low cost, continuous, passively-stable magnetic levitation. Superconductors could replace ball bearings in many applications. - They enable permanent magnets that are far stronger than any we make from conventiona…

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

That this as a solution applicable to _personal_ computing is a bonus. The real benefit is in datacenters which could be made smaller, more efficient, and cheaper while simultaneously adding capacity.

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

#835

Post by thereddaikon »

giarc wrote: post #789
rbanffy wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I can imagine is desktop MRI machines, or, at least, much cheaper and less finicky big MRI machines that don’t take days to chill to operating temperature. Maglevs are also a popular guess - safer, faster, and more power efficient ground mass transport would be a huge thing. Maybe even magnetic rail space launches. And, of course, military applications (the last few examples I mentioned involve acceleration…

Those are two I see mentioned the most often (MRI and maglevs). To be honest though, those are great things to improve (especially the MRI), however, the amount of hype in this thread and on the internet tells me there must be more than just improved MRI and better trains....

If its economical it will help with losses in the grid over distance. colliders like the LHC and fermi lab could be a lot cheaper to upgrade with room temp superconductors. More reliable too. Would also be a big help fusion reactors. Anything that uses electric motors will also benefit.

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

#836

Post by TaylorAlexander »

eternityforest wrote: post #663
mildchalupa wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.5-2 Tesla you hit the knee of the BH curve and you saturate the steel.

Do you need steel? What about a brushed(Assume some fancy future micrometer gallium filled gap that doesn't wear or something) motor that just has superconducting coils attracting each other?

Yeah I guess if you have superconductors you prob don’t need steel. Bonus, no cogging.

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

#837

Post by olddustytrail »

arcticbull wrote: post #596
Turskarama wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the point is that they hardly caused a revolution in energy storage. If fuel cells didn't exist, for the average person life would be exactly the same. Revolutionary tech does change normal peoples lives, and sometimes very rapidly, but a lot of stuff that looks revolutionary just kind of never works out. I'd say nuclear power is probably the prime example of this. It was supposed to bring us electricity to…

> It was supposed to bring us electricity too cheap to meter, but it's actually the most expensive form of generation that anyone bothers to build. Hardly, coal is much more expensive if you price in the externalities. We just pretend they don't exist for coal, and we staple anything that moves to nuclear. Coal kills 25 people per TWh generated, and the actuarial cost of a death is about $10M as used by the nuclear i…

Can you give me an example of a nuclear power station that was built entirely without taxpayer subsidy by a private company, and manages to sell electricity to the grid cheaply and make a profit?

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

#838

Post by noname120 »

Roark66 wrote: post #796
sebzim4500 wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more that a generation of people grew up with lead paint and that decreased the average IQ so much that you have people suggesting that lead smoke is harmless.

Since when lead emits smoke? You'd have to heat it beyond it's boiling point that is 1750C,while the typical lead casting is done at around 450C.even if you managed to vaporise minute amounts of lead it's going to condense and fall out long before it reaches "your neighbour's house". I wonder, does everyone that scared of lead own smartphones? (with cadmium in their batteries). Cadmium is very toxic and it boils at u…

Dust.

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

#840

Post by riversflow »

mabbo wrote: post #561
thehappypm wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've just proven (if true of course) that it's possible at all. That is a massive, massive leap. And once it's possible, it won't be long until it's optimized. We've seen this everywhere -- transistors were once huge and now nanometers; solar cells have improved in every where; batteries are cheaper and better than ever.

Many years ago, as an undergrad, I was telling a grad student friend how I'd been learning about the Selection algorithm- it lets you pick the Kth largest element from an unsorted list in linear time, which is pretty neat. I said "It's O(n), but the constant is ridiculous in most implementations so it's usually better just to sort and then pick the kth element". The grad student friend said something that stuck with…

> That was never guaranteed

Branching off into a philosophical thought here, but I find this to be completely wrong. It was always guaranteed; logic, like physics and chemistry is not an environment that changes.

We have discovered a functioning technique which might be improved upon. What wasn’t guaranteed was that it would be found.

Biology is the root of most, perhaps all, uncertainty. After all, it is our biology that makes us imperfect observers, thinkers, and makers(but also enables us to do those things at all!).

I think this is important, because their is a significant difference in mindset between making something, and looking for something. Science is looking, technology is making. Things are always “seen” before they are “made”.

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