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A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

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Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#291
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the "disappointment" with USA scientists in this thread not having yet published a replication. There has only been one weekday since the LK-99 revelation came to light. Have some patience. The analysis from this article is a publication from Berkeley National Lab that has already come out, and Argonne National Lab has announced they have synthesized the material as of yesterday and will release results f…

China has more people, more money to spend on research, more equipment, more access to raw materials and chemicals, more manufacturing base, more STEM graduates, more everything, and all of that by huge margins. USA scientists will eventually put something out, but 10x more slowly than China.

> more money to spend on research

Would you accept “chooses to spend more on research”?

The US certainly could spend more but, imho sadly, we do not.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#292
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think them waiting until there’s more research is preferable to them coming out and making random claims which pan out not to be true.

Genuinely a laugh-out-loud take on mainstream science reporting.

Why aim to improve when we can just keep making the same old mistakes?

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If they could get it down to modern chip scale, does that mean you could run a processor very very fast and not generate heat? Or at least a lot less heat? So that would mean much faster clock speeds? What would be the limit on clock speed if you had a superconducting processor?

I think a lot of the losses happen in the semiconductors in the CPU, not the wires. Even if LK-99 is a room temperature superconductor, it's probably not usable as a semiconductor.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen three now from China alone. Plus a calculation from some respected institute from today that confirms the theory

Throughout this whole saga I've had this feeling that at the very least we can rely on China to really pursue this new development to it's logical end. It's kind of sad, but I don't think I can say the same about the US at this moment. You know for a fact China's going to JUMP on this, figure out if it works or not, and iterate.

that's not my take, the US has just as much talent, knowledge, and skill, but scientists here will do it 10 times to make damn sure they don't look bad before they put it out. Same reason the original 3 authors are trying to get it in nature for. More formal, more assurance for the scientific community than some twitter posts. In the end, everyone is starting from the same info right now.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#295

> 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. :-)

I want to believe. After several millennia of killing people for gold, we can finally put all that gold to good use—using it to create superconductors that can power energy weapons we can use to kill each other. ♫ It's the circle of life ♫

People cut cables for copper. Imagine what will happen with cables with gold.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#297
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the "disappointment" with USA scientists in this thread not having yet published a replication. There has only been one weekday since the LK-99 revelation came to light. Have some patience. The analysis from this article is a publication from Berkeley National Lab that has already come out, and Argonne National Lab has announced they have synthesized the material as of yesterday and will release results f…

One thing that has been constant for at least a decade or more is that every time a lab in China publishes even an incremental advance, a legion of internet commenters descends to declare the end of US hegemony because Americans didn't discover it first.

Yep "it's the end of science in the barbaric Western nations" crowd.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#298

> 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. :-)

Watch gold be the only practically viable solution, making this new material wonderful but also incredibly expensive.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#299
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throughout this whole saga I've had this feeling that at the very least we can rely on China to really pursue this new development to it's logical end. It's kind of sad, but I don't think I can say the same about the US at this moment. You know for a fact China's going to JUMP on this, figure out if it works or not, and iterate.

I don't get the "disappointment" with USA scientists in this thread not having yet published a replication. There has only been one weekday since the LK-99 revelation came to light. Have some patience. The analysis from this article is a publication from Berkeley National Lab that has already come out, and Argonne National Lab has announced they have synthesized the material as of yesterday and will release results f…

I agree. Not to discount the work the Chinese academies are doing, but I don't regard twitter activity as indicative of what U.S. labs are doing, and I'd strongly urge others not to do so either.

As you noted, there's labs working on this, they've said they're working on this, and I take the lack of minute-by-minute social media updates to indicate that it's serious and they want to get it right.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t they try heating it and seeing if the effect goes away? You could even try a welding torch or something.

or just stick it outside in a heat dome? don't you have one near you?

lol or a temperature chamber that the vast majority of labs have? heck I made a toaster oven that will go anywhere from 100F to 400F with an arduino and a $3 toaster oven from the junk store.
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