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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?

#211

Post by AdamH12113 »

golergka wrote: post #171
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.

Unfortunately, this is not even close to correct. Resistive losses in wires are not the only cause of wasted energy, and in most battery-powered devices they aren't very important at all. How is a superconductor supposed to help with e.g. switching losses in a buck converter, or reduce the amount of energy stored in a transistor's gate capacitance?

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

#212

Post by tomatotomato37 »

orwin wrote: post #127
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?

I'm afraid not, the magnetic field might be a bit too strong. But for local/grid storage, it's perfect. Also, infinite magnets, this might allow for less neodymium in renewable. And probably dozen new applications we don't think of yet. I said 3 years ago on this website that the only techno silver bullet I believed in against climate change was room-temperature superconductors, as this would help tremendously on - i…

> I'm afraid not, the magnetic field might be a bit too strong.

I was always curious about that. The ability to hold extreme electrical currents means superconductors also produce extreme magnetic fields, which I presume will happily induce induction currents in whatever conductive material is nearby. If that material is non-superconductive, than it will start sapping the electromagnetic energy from said superconductor as the eddy currents get resisted, getting hot in the process.

What I guess I'm saying is that I'm not sure how you're supposed to build a superconductive grid or motor without also turning everything around it into an induction stove when you turn it on.

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

#213

Post by TillE »

dang wrote: post #141
carabiner wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As far as HN's discussion goes, I'd say the community has been getting it right. The conversation has been curious and substantive, everyone knows it's probably not true, but most are not making shallow dismissals. There's a shared sense of waiting for the replications to succeed or fail, and in the meantime, discussion of the details as well as what the impact would be if it does turn out. Also driving interest is t…

This really nicely echoes a response to Eliezer Yudkowsky that I saw: if you always just play the odds on stuff like this, you're gonna be wrong about the real breakthroughs, which by definition defy the odds.

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical, but I remain hopeful. All the theoretical critiques are extra interesting if this is real and the data is basically accurate.

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

#214

Post by synapsomorphy »

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.

The other comments are correct, but I'll add that (if there's actually SC going on) there's not even necessarily a current limitation. Only a current was reported in the paper, not a cross-sectional area, and the sample being used appears to have been a thin film, the thickness of which we have no idea.

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

#215

Post by foven »

badman2001 wrote: post #198

Recent W&M Condensed Matter Physics Grad. Worked closely with HT Kim, not on this project. He is a trustworthy guy, knows his stuff. I think he is right when he calls the paper very sloppy, I am confused why there is no phase diagram and the sample purity seems suspect. These are things I think would have been addressed in peer review and would give me more confidence overall. Probably not fraud, but doesn't mean it'…

Glad to see a realistic take on HN. Endlessly frustrating to see people be like "this will be replicated in days". Yeah, sure, let every other lab just drop what they're doing, order all the reagents on express, do a thorough characterization making sure they understand the impurities and crystal phase, then perform good airtight measurements in a couple days. Crystal growth always has complications many times outside of your control - the most minor of things can cause ridiculous problems.

Especially when they admit to having phase impurities, and it's not really clear how they've gone from bulk sample to measurement sample (are they really measuring just the superconductor or the impurity phase?). Needs addressing, especially when the Cu2S phase impurity seems to have a phase transition of it's own at or around 370K (suspiciously close to where some of their Tc measurements are).

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

#217

Post by tetrisgm »

candiddevmike wrote: post #58
jansan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I thought there was something about waste heat being a problem in outer space, so if this fixes that it could open the door for space-based laser weapons and other terrible things. GDI Ion Cannon when?

I mean Russia claims they have battle dolphins. Might as well.

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

#218

Post by HDThoreaun »

foven wrote: post #215
badman2001 wrote: post #198

Recent W&M Condensed Matter Physics Grad. Worked closely with HT Kim, not on this project. He is a trustworthy guy, knows his stuff. I think he is right when he calls the paper very sloppy, I am confused why there is no phase diagram and the sample purity seems suspect. These are things I think would have been addressed in peer review and would give me more confidence overall. Probably not fraud, but doesn't mean it'…

Glad to see a realistic take on HN. Endlessly frustrating to see people be like "this will be replicated in days". Yeah, sure, let every other lab just drop what they're doing, order all the reagents on express, do a thorough characterization making sure they understand the impurities and crystal phase, then perform good airtight measurements in a couple days. Crystal growth always has complications many times outsid…

I mean being thorough will obviously take a long time, but if a decent number of research groups decide to drop what they're doing and attempt a replication I don't think it would take that long for one of them to at least partially succeed if the claim is true. That doesn't mean they're publishing a sister paper, but it might mean we see some tweets saying "my group synthesized LK-99 and we have reason to believe it may be a rtp superconductor"

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

#219

Post by kickopotomus »

yetihehe wrote: post #107
l33t233372 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand how superconductors will make phones into supercomputers. There is a still the limitation of the number of transistors in a given volume. Also, how does this help fusion become possible?

> I don’t understand how superconductors will make phones into supercomputers. Currently transistors and connections use a lot of power just to transfer some bits, superconducting wires and maybe transistors would help. > Also, how does this help fusion become possible? Stronger magnets which you don't need to cool with liquid helium will help achieve better plasma confinement.

Superconductors may reduce power consumption but they don't do anything to improve transistor density.

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

#220

Post by retrac »

tomatotomato37 wrote: post #212
orwin wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid not, the magnetic field might be a bit too strong. But for local/grid storage, it's perfect. Also, infinite magnets, this might allow for less neodymium in renewable. And probably dozen new applications we don't think of yet. I said 3 years ago on this website that the only techno silver bullet I believed in against climate change was room-temperature superconductors, as this would help tremendously on - i…

> I'm afraid not, the magnetic field might be a bit too strong. I was always curious about that. The ability to hold extreme electrical currents means superconductors also produce extreme magnetic fields, which I presume will happily induce induction currents in whatever conductive material is nearby. If that material is non-superconductive, than it will start sapping the electromagnetic energy from said superconduct…

> than it will start sapping the electromagnetic energy from said superconductor

Electromagnetic induction involves the inductor, too. With a conventional electromagnet in a changing field, there is a current (an opposite current, in a sense) induced in the electromagnet's winding which is how the energy transfer occurs. The coil's apparent resistance increases as it moves through the field. But superconductors have no resistance :)

Since a superconductor rejects induction from outside magnetic fields (Meissner effect) they do not inductively couple in the same way. Once energized and then looped, a superconducting magnet behaves more like a permanent magnet.

With regard to use in power storage, strong magnets of any kind are rather inconvenient (even dangerous) around anything magnetic.

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