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Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

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Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#41
post #23
post #6

"this may spark a revolution in electronics as significant as the invention of the transistor, vacuum tube, and induction motor." How, exactly?

More destructive weapons. Of course I am being cynical, but that will certainly be one of the outcomes.

Maybe around the edges, but existing weapons are plenty destructive and many of them do not operate in an electronic regime except for control systems. Rail guns would probably get more effective but they're still not really all that useful and lasers might get more effective but again not really a material change to the battlefield, only an incremental one.

It's hard to develop a technology that can't be used by the military in some capacity but as such things go this one seems substantially more useful to everyone than useful to militaries.

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#42
post #28

A source (German) attributed to the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research thinks the paper is bogus [0] [0] https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9a3f8740

Pushing this higher up, this is the first real expert commentary I have seen.

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#43
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone posted a ChatGPT answer, which seems a pretty good response: Energy Efficiency: Superconductors conduct electricity without resistance, which means they don't produce heat as a byproduct. This could make electronic devices more energy-efficient and help them run cooler, which could extend battery life in mobile devices and potentially reduce the need for cooling in larger devices like computers. Processing Sp…

So basically 'more efficient'? I'd dispute the 'dramatically' more efficient power grids, unless that's couched in industry terms - ie a 10% reduction in transmission losses might be 'dramatic' for energy grid engineers. But not really world-changing, for the rest of us. "Aerospace and Defense: Superconductors could be used in a variety of aerospace and defense applications, such as advanced radar systems, satellite…

Think of all the workarounds that we have to use to offset the waste heat and signal degradation of electricity (everywhere, including your computer/phone), and now imagine those things not existing.

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#44

My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard "high temperature" YBCO superconductor material just slightly modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically new, like a new chemistry. How likely is it that all the other 1000s of labs doing research on this topic just missed this lucky combination of baking, cooling and whatnot?

It’s not a standard matrix and what do you mean by no new chemistry?

To create such a dramatic increase in critical temperature, I would expect you need a dramatic change in chemistry (as in: formula, materials,...) as well.

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#45

My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard "high temperature" YBCO superconductor material just slightly modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically new, like a new chemistry. How likely is it that all the other 1000s of labs doing research on this topic just missed this lucky combination of baking, cooling and whatnot?

The space of possible combinations of just three different elements of the periodic table is huge. This is before you get into added dimensions of processing, ratios of each element to the others, different possible crystal structures, etc.

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#46
post #28

A source (German) attributed to the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research thinks the paper is bogus [0] [0] https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9a3f8740

Q: Das Layout sieht Scheiße aus! A: Jo, das ist das historische Default-Layout. solid.

My German is poor. Does this say:

Q: The layout is very shitty!

A: No, it’s the historically default layout.

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#47
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone posted a ChatGPT answer, which seems a pretty good response: Energy Efficiency: Superconductors conduct electricity without resistance, which means they don't produce heat as a byproduct. This could make electronic devices more energy-efficient and help them run cooler, which could extend battery life in mobile devices and potentially reduce the need for cooling in larger devices like computers. Processing Sp…

So basically 'more efficient'? I'd dispute the 'dramatically' more efficient power grids, unless that's couched in industry terms - ie a 10% reduction in transmission losses might be 'dramatic' for energy grid engineers. But not really world-changing, for the rest of us. "Aerospace and Defense: Superconductors could be used in a variety of aerospace and defense applications, such as advanced radar systems, satellite…

Shorter, portable, lower energy railguns? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#48
post #28

A source (German) attributed to the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research thinks the paper is bogus [0] [0] https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9a3f8740

In a week there will be a lot of thinkpieces on how the internet got this so wrong. A lot of people just want to believe, full of hope, because their life situations (poverty, housing crisis, hot weather) are so dire.

I haven’t seen this get much play outside of HN and… those are not the problems facing most HN commentators

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#49
post #7

Just for fun: Am I the only one who thinks there's connection between this and the UAP news that's coming out? RTSC would probably enable a lot of incredible energy & maneuverability capabilities... Sorry, indulging in a little off-topic conspiracy theorizing.

[flagged]

I guess climate change will also destabilize society. But I know what you mean.

Re: Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity – this time for real?

#50
post #35

My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard "high temperature" YBCO superconductor material just slightly modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically new, like a new chemistry. How likely is it that all the other 1000s of labs doing research on this topic just missed this lucky combination of baking, cooling and whatnot?

> My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard "high temperature" YBCO superconductor material just slightly modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically new, like a new chemistry. There is no Pb in YBCO, what are you on about?

That is what I would call a slightly modified approach. They just "bake something together" and hope to get lucky. No way.

Anyway, I am not an expert. I hope they have a win here, but hard to believe at this point.

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