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A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

science.org

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Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#161
post #19

I still have a very, very hard time understanding what all of this means. Is there an easy to understand explanation for a room temperature superconductor?

It's a conductor of electricity. But super good at it. i.e. - It has zero resistance to electricity. Currently, the best superconducting materials we can create have to be chilled to near absolute zero, which means designing them to work in liquid helium baths. This is expensive, and difficult. If a material can superconduct at room temperature, now we're talking usage in general purpose consumer goods. As for why we…

Would help with fusion, right?

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#162

With all the recent “the government has alien spacecraft news” and the bizarre circumstances of this material’s creation, the (I know to be ridiculous) conspiratorial part of my mind is going “I guess climate change is finally forcing them to take stuff out of the extraterrestrial vaults.”

... or Gödel was right and the universe spins and backward time travel is possible and they got permission to pull some future inventions out of the vault retrieved from future us ... in order to make sure we actually make it to future us ... which we should ... because the inventions are real ...

This one is fun too.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#163

> They also predict that substituting gold atoms into the Pb(1) site could lead to a material with very similar properties, which will be an extremely interesting idea to put to the test. Since the base material is lead apatite, I had a random thought that maybe medieval alchemists trying to turn lead into gold just had it backward, as doping gold into lead might be a breakthrough. :-)

Now I'm imagining what history would have looked like if the alchemists had indeed stumbled upon a floating lead apatite sample a few centuries ago...

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#164
post #19

I still have a very, very hard time understanding what all of this means. Is there an easy to understand explanation for a room temperature superconductor?

Superconductor are more efficient at transmitting energy, here are some consequences:

- Cheaper electricity transportation

- New kind of batteries

- Consumer devices that don't heat up as you use them

- Simplifies the design of fusion reactors, which means we could have fusion sooner and cheaper

- Probably lots of things we can't even think of

If this is true, then you still have a lot of time before you can do industrial replication but given the stakes I imagine we will see immense inflows of capital into this.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#166
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The time stamps are below the post’s title

You know how sometimes people complain about an old story, and say put year in the title, like this. (2014) Some Title What is below the title is a time since posted, not the date of the article. This was a joke. Since there are multiple submittals every hour today about this story. So need something like (8/1/2023 10AM) Yet Another Story, about another group, with claim about Replication of Superconductor

You'll never get that through committee. It'll get hung up on which time zone to use.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#168

With all the recent “the government has alien spacecraft news” and the bizarre circumstances of this material’s creation, the (I know to be ridiculous) conspiratorial part of my mind is going “I guess climate change is finally forcing them to take stuff out of the extraterrestrial vaults.”

So they planted this with a Korean lab a few years ago?

Please see “I know to be ridiculous” in my comment. This was intended as a joke.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#169

This is exciting, but I try to maintain my composure. Good luck to all involved. I didn’t know science could be such a thrilling spectator sport.

I saw a video the other day that pointed out that the breakdown current for their sample was 260 mA. Now there's a lot of things you can do with 260mA, but I don't believe high-tesla electromagnets are in that list, so no MRIs, no fusion, and probably no electromotive devices (generators, motors).

But now we know its possible, maybe they can figure out the structures that make it work and develop better materials?

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the news that ChatGPT is attempting an LK-99 replication.

Yes. Using the well known ChatGPT manufacturing capabilities.

Soon: The unrestricted GPT-4 model began by hiring a task rabbit to order lead oxide, lead sulfate, elemental copper, phosphorus, and a vacuum-evacuated quartz oven...
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