A room-temperature superconductor? New developments • Hacker News Board

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#321

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #289

deeg wrote: 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.

Most people I talk to don't recognize the importance of room temperature superconductivity. A floating grain is cool, but not something that jumps out at people like a rocket or a big fusion reactor. The application is similarly unintuitive. Many here on HN ask why such a thing would be important, and they are probably the 99th (or 99.9th?) percentile in materials science and EE literacy.

[deleted]

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#322

Post by jlmorton » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

orangepurple wrote: post #249

_yb2s wrote: 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.

China spends nowhere near as much as the US on basic research. The US spends $100 billion on basic research annually, compared to $25 billion in China.

However, total R&D is quite a bit closer, with the US spending $660b to China’s $556 billion. [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_...

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#323

Post by ska » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

ta1243 wrote: post #53

fallingknife wrote: post #49

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.

This assumes everyone's primary motivation is $, which just isn't true. I've known super bright and talented people who gone off to wall street or FAANG for big $, but I've also known equally strong people who turned it down for low 6 figures doing the research they wanted to.

In both cases some are very happy with their choice, others not so much.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#324

Post by aeneasmackenzie » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:01 PM UTC

rvnx wrote: post #308

marshray wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over a handheld neodymium magnet. None of the videos have yet shown complete 'levitation', they all have a corner on the surface. But still, not behavior that anyone has ever seen from lead before.

But couldn't it just be a magnet ? I don't understand how it's a proof. You can already do what is in the video (and even better), with for example, pyrolitic carbon ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolytic_carbon

It’s not proof, but if it wasn’t even diamagnetic it would be over. It couldn't just be a magnet, it is repelled from both ends of a normal magnet, according to Chinese lab videos you can find in the thread.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#325

Post by CPLX » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:02 PM UTC

natechols wrote: post #281

_yb2s wrote: 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.

Is your argument that China’s increasing technical prowess will not inevitably result in the US hegemony ending?

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#326

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:02 PM UTC

anyoneamous wrote: post #205

ChuckMcM wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about LK-99 coins!?!? Right? Maybe we use diffusion to design them so they are "super-conducting crypto AI coins" get yours now for only $199 at the Philadelphia Mint. Act now, supplies are limited!

I'm going to use my new skills as a Prompt Engineer to get Stable Diffusion to produce some NFTs for me, and use the profits to invest in a SPAC targeting LK-99 start-ups. Now explain that sentence to a caveman - or even to someone in 1990.

Language divergence is kind of insane. I heard a person say in conversation "I didn't get a picture of it because I didn't have my phone with me." And thinking about how that would be interpreted, 10, 25, 50, and 100 years ago is pretty funny.

There is a funny comedy bit in the movie "Sleeper" where Woody Allen's character is explaining what things were for to scientists in the 23rd century. But today it is even wilder.

What really strikes me is that it isn't "slang" that we're dealing with here, it is actual kind of "things". I thought we had peaked with pet rocks but I was so, so very wrong.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#327

Post by bobthepanda » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:05 PM UTC

CPLX wrote: post #325

natechols wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is your argument that China’s increasing technical prowess will not inevitably result in the US hegemony ending?

People said the same about Japan. The '80s and '90s was a bunch of media-fueled "the Japanese will run the world" hysteria.

Japan is a technical powerhouse but that doesn't inevitably lead to ending hegemony. It requires a lot of other work too.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#328

Post by baq » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:07 PM UTC

Agingcoder wrote: post #117

SanderNL wrote: post #21

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.

Yes, this is absolutely thrilling. I can’t help looking for the latest development everyday.

Every day? I’m checking like every half hour

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#329

Post by dirtyid » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

_yb2s wrote: post #266

orangepurple wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not looking at official numbers here, but in my field (academic biotech research) I still don't see much innovation coming out of China. All of what you say is true, yet in academic research China is still far behind the USA in nearly every field. They haven't yet been able to build institutions with the staff, structure, and culture needed. That will likely change in time, but at present the best Chinese scienti…

Varies by field but last few years PRC been reaching parity to topping various science and innovation indexes, PRC institutions also breaking global top100 and general trend of moving up rankings. TLDR is PRC science exploded after mid 2010s - lag effect from academic reform in 00s. Biotech/bioeconomy a outlier though - just got elevated to strategic sector with 500b usd investment in last year's 5 year plan, so expect PRC to start being competitive in 5-10 years.

> at present the best Chinese scientists are still coming to the USA to work

IMO not true anymore. This isn't pre 00s where PRC send best abroad as part of state strategy and best have some english fluency because it's needed for science. More and more PRC best aren't English fluent since there's sufficiently large and growing chinese science ecosystem and best also have good access to resources in tier1 labs. Hence US cracking down on 1000 talents program where PRC entice scientists to work in PRC due to unparallel resources. Or acadmeic exchanges with PRC in general. Also see stats of record amount of scientists returning to PRC this yearm

>best students want to stay there,

Best PRC students go to PRC C9 (Ivy equivalent) now. Top US institutions captures the occasional talent with english proficiency and desire / resources to go abroad. But PRC best have been largely staying in PRC last decade. TBH most Chinese students in west now are those who couldnt hack PRC gaokao/teritary selection system but have rich enough parents to send them abroad. They're B tier talent. Still adequate to work in western labs but you simply don't hear much about PRC students in west who tested top of their districts anymore like in 00s. They're no sending their best and haven't been for while. But generally their ok is good enough. Medium term expect even less PRC students, partly due to geopoltics but also PRC likely phasing out mandetory English as core subject which will make brain draining next gen more difficult. There's always India who seem systemically incapable of preventing brain drain.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#330

Post by Eumenes » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

dralley wrote: post #302

allenrb wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Maybe Venture Capital should spend less money on Juciero, automated pizza ovens, and gig-economy bs and more money on materials science and fusion research. Even if you end up lighting the money on fire, at least it's a more societally productive fire than, say, SoftBank's portfolio.

There isn't a good likelihood on strong return on those type of investments. You need real engineering talent and leaders. You can glue together a delivery or dating app with a bunch of 25 year olds who just got out of a ruby on rails bootcamp, raise a few million with charismatic/well connected leaders/founders, and maybe gain enough users to be acquired or something. Anything in materials science is going to require some deep expertise, labs/machines/composites/fabrication/manufacturing setups, inside connections at the DoD, trial and error that costs millions.

Yeah, I agree, its way cooler, but way more risky for VC.