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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?

#171

Post by golergka »

mrbonner wrote: post #165

I’m a noob when it comes to SC. Sorry to ask this question here and hope someone could explain. I can’t get any answer from Google. What is the excitement around seeing floating magnets? My understanding is that we can have 2 regular magnets float if position them in opposite polarity, right?

Basically, all of the electronical devices humanity uses, from nuclear power plants to smart watches, are about to get efficiency improvements in double digits. This is trillions of dollars per year, and a couple of degrees in average Earth temperature.

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

#172

Post by civilitty »

gameshot911 wrote: post #153
retrac wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Superconductors are in the name. They're ideal conductors. As a corollary, superconductors coiled into a wire, shaped like an inductor, are also ideal inductors. By ideal, I informally mean nearly perfect in a mathematical sense. A thin superconductor can carry an almost arbitrary amount of electricity with 0% loss. This is a real-world application already for superconductors, but it requires cooling the entire condu…

> Similarly, an inductor made out of a superconductor, that is looped back on itself, can hold a magnetic field indefinitely, with 0% loss. Energy storage. Could this be used to make a bomb? If the new material really is as easy to manufacture as it seems, could homegrown terrorists easily create WMDs?

Yes they can be used to make a multistage electromagnetic pulse device but room temperature superconductors wouldn't really make it that much easier. Definitely not easy enough for a non-state actor to make one.

The amount of current generated during the first stage of an EMP detonation is so high it ablates the coil away, which wouldn't happen with superconducting wires. However, it wouldn't protect it against the explosive used to generate the magnetic field, which is the biggest challenge.

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

#173

Post by whoisburbansky »

mrbonner wrote: post #165

I’m a noob when it comes to SC. Sorry to ask this question here and hope someone could explain. I can’t get any answer from Google. What is the excitement around seeing floating magnets? My understanding is that we can have 2 regular magnets float if position them in opposite polarity, right?

With the regular magnets, you'd have to hold them in places, since otherwise they'd rotate in place and fall back down, attracted to each other.

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

#175

Post by CyberDildonics »

dougmwne wrote: post #131
CyberDildonics wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven't had "the beginning of AGI" and there is no reason cheaper electricity would "destabilize society".

Aaactuallly… Our society is build on a foundation of relatively cheap energy. Massive amounts of energy are built into the production of every item of food that reaches your fridge or item that reaches your closet. The unleashing of stored energy was the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. If energy became 1000 or 1 million times cheaper, it would transform society. Global warming would be solved. Food would be solved…

None of this is any sort of explanation for "destabilizing society".

Even if nuclear fusion was perfected today it would take decades to build out and infrastructure would still be a big cost. That would take care of only electricity, not overall transportation.

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

#176

Post by bick_nyers »

jacknews wrote: post #72
candiddevmike wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This assumes superconducting wires everywhere. I don't really see it happenning in microelectronics for example. You'd have to replace the entire silicon ecosystem with this new material. Not happening soon, probably never. But sure, for specific applications an increase to 'near 100%' efficiency could have important secondary effects, eliminating heat-sinks, etc.

An ultra low power CPU that doesn't generate heat and has a clock frequency of 770GHz is hard to pass on.

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

#177

Post by zardo »

retrac wrote: post #63
jacknews wrote: post #6

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

Superconductors are in the name. They're ideal conductors. As a corollary, superconductors coiled into a wire, shaped like an inductor, are also ideal inductors. By ideal, I informally mean nearly perfect in a mathematical sense. A thin superconductor can carry an almost arbitrary amount of electricity with 0% loss. This is a real-world application already for superconductors, but it requires cooling the entire condu…

> A thin superconductor can carry an almost arbitrary amount of electricity with 0% loss.

A picture is worth a thousand words here.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=superconductor+critical+surface&t=...

Superconductors operate within the bounds of their critical surface. The max current depends on the temperature and field density, it's never arbitrary.

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

#178

Post by civilitty »

retrac wrote: post #87
petesergeant wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> an inductor made out of a superconductor, that is looped back on itself, can hold a magnetic field indefinitely, with 0% loss. Energy storage. In a way that could be used to power a car?

Conceivably, though the power density of superconducting energy storage is very low and will likely remain low. It is currently used at grid-scale to smooth out power spikes, since they can charge/discharge their full capacity almost instantly. > SMES is also used in utility applications. In northern Wisconsin, a string of distributed SMES units were deployed to enhance stability of a transmission loop. The transmiss…

> power density of superconducting energy storage is very low

That's backwards: the power density is high, but the energy density is low.

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

#179

Post by slashdev »

bandyaboot wrote: post #174

If this confirms, I really hope that the current limitation can be overcome. That would be brutal to actually find a ambient temperature and pressure SC only to have its usefulness for big real world applications be nerfed.

I think the most important thing is it proves it can be done.

At one point it was thought impossible to run a 4 minute mile. There were all kinds of scientific sounding explanations why it just couldn’t be done. Then someone did it. Shortly after that, lots of people did it, because now people knew it was possible.

If this is for real, it proves it can be done. Tons of money, work, and innovation will follow once people know the problem can be solved.

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

#180

Post by scarmig »

anonymouse008 wrote: post #3
mijoharas wrote: post #2

So, has anyone seen any of the replication studies start coming in yet? From what I've read we seem to be waiting on those. (and I think they're likely coming today or tomorrow?)

I'm following this fellow: https://twitter.com/andrewmccalip Seems to have the right energy [edit thanks folks] https://nitter.net/i/status/1684433849781202944 Here’s a more colorful play by play as well: https://nitter.net/8teapi/status/1684586672917565443

I love the colorful play-by-play. It could almost be a kdrama.

It's also kind of crazy that one of the authors did over 1000 experiments until he found LK-99, regardless of whether it checks out. Talk about a grind mindset.

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