Live data from Hacker News

A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

science.org

211–220 of 821 posts

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#211
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are they all from China? Why are they able to replicate so much faster than US labs?

Everyone with half a brain in the US is working the ad-tech and data-mining industries, that's where the money is.

I suppose the researchers at Lawrence National Lab in Berkeley, whose analysis and pre-print replication effort is cited in the linked article, are working with, what, quarter-brains?

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#212

Mostly, I am just glad that all the LK-99 posts are drowning out the "AI" news for a few days.

Anything is better than crypto.

My new start-up, Super Conducting Artifical Minds, is releasing a new coin that allows zero resistance neural network computation on the block chain. Get in on it now and you can make millions in passive income!

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#213
post #98
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think your EV is so efficient that you only need to charge it once every 5000 miles.

How does a superconductor help with that? Lithium ion is already 95-99% efficient, same with motors. It would help with the charging cable, but that's not increasing the battery capacity. Off the top of my head the main advantage here seems to be MRIs, maybe also maglev trains, maybe generators? It really depends on the form factor of this superconductor compared to copper wire.

There is also SMES, energy storage application, already in use today that may become interesting for other use cases if we could do it without the cooling: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_ene...

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#214

Mostly, I am just glad that all the LK-99 posts are drowning out the "AI" news for a few days.

This is going to turn into the Iran Contra affair all over again. Get tired of one set of assholes? Funnel resources to another set of assholes (who also wish you harm). If this turns out to be actually true then everyone will want to talk about fusion again. I don't know if I have the stomach for it. But as you say, at least it's not AI.

Fusion was already starting to heat up in recent years. The entire SPARC reactor concept is based on (low-temp) superconductor materials breakthroughs.

If these room-temp superconductors pan out, it will be dumping gasoline on the funding fire for new fusion attempts. Given less than a year from scientific verification, fusion will go red hot.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#215
post #167

Mostly, I am just glad that all the LK-99 posts are drowning out the "AI" news for a few days.

What has happened to HN the past few months? So much AI, Superconductors and open source air quality monitoring.

You've fallen for the Fundamental Attribution Error.

It's not HN; it's the world that's driving this.

1. GPT-4-grade AI is a genuine, holy-smokes innovation that is already driving massive changes in education (universities are having to redesign all their writing assignments,) entertainment (SAG-AFTRA strike,) and the tech industry (the sudden disappearance of thousands of jobs, and the concomitant socioeconomic demotion of software engineers. And if you think AI isn't to blame here: you're probably right! There was other stuff going on, e.g. the end of ZIRP. But AI will keep those jobs away.)

2. Clean air seems pressing, as (if you'll recall) we just had this little pandemic thing happen, and in case you missed it, a vast chunk of my country (Canada) is currently ablaze, choking the United States with smoke, and other places are experiencing similar pressures (thanks, 2023 Thermal Pulse.)

3. RTAP Superconductors are literally the stuff of sci fi, and their advent interacts directly with trends 1 and 2, as RTAPS would make climate change more easily addressed (dramatic efficiency improvements across the board) and also would make AI silicon work much, much faster as part of that. It might also open the door to efficient quantum computing, which in turn would drive AGI even faster/further.

You're living through some seriously bonkers stuff, and your newsfeed is understandably preoccupied with it.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#216
post #98
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think your EV is so efficient that you only need to charge it once every 5000 miles.

How does a superconductor help with that? Lithium ion is already 95-99% efficient, same with motors. It would help with the charging cable, but that's not increasing the battery capacity. Off the top of my head the main advantage here seems to be MRIs, maybe also maglev trains, maybe generators? It really depends on the form factor of this superconductor compared to copper wire.

The problem with losing 5% of the energy in the motor windings is that they heat up. With superconducting windings you run smaller-lighter motors.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#218
post #165

I'm astounded that the MSM seems to be ignoring this ATM. I did a Google news search on LK-99 and saw nothing from major publications. A search on the NYTimes returned an article from 1974.

I haven't seen a particularly great explanation that explains why this is such a positive discovery that is copy/paste/digestable. No MSM outlet is going to run this story unless they can say an impact.

There are a ton of them on Twitter.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#220
post #69

Third replication on some Chinese website https://www.zhihu.com/zvideo/1669820225079070720

Description by the author, translated by Google Translate:

I need to clarify and explain: the sample is standing above the magnet, and it will immediately return to standing when pressed with tweezers in front of the video, similar to the anti-magnetism of Koreans. In the back of the video, because the sample is too small, I dare not push it with tweezers, and it is easy to break the sample, so I moved the paper a little sideways, and it can be seen that the sample is still diamagnetic, and it is not that the moving magnet is moving with the magnet. Whether it is related to flux pinning or superconductivity remains to be further verified. Please treat it rationally!

Original: 我需要澄清和解释一下:样品在磁铁上方是站立着,视频前面用镊子去压它马上又恢复站立状态,类似韩国人的抗磁性。视频后面因为样品太小,没敢用镊子去推,容易把样品搞碎,所以稍微横移了一下纸张,可以看到样品还是呈抗磁性,并不是移动磁铁跟着磁铁在移动。是否属于磁通钉扎或者超导相关还有待进一步的验证。请理性看待!

Post reply on HN