571–580 of 821 posts
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> CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Can't superconductor help here?
Superconducting semiconductors? I doubt such a thing is possible.
The ramifications of the inflection point we are currently at is mind boggling. I had a hard time explaining this last night but we may very well be witnessing the beginnings of a technological transformation era much like when the p-n junction was invented. From the 1940s standpoint it would be hard to envision all we had today. - Lossless transport of energy - Batteries that don't take any time to recharge - Faster…
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I think the critical temperature was 400 K (127 °C).
The original preprint said at least 400K. They didn't find an upper limit. And for some reason, they don't seem to have the standard impulse of "hey, our potentially revolutionary material that we've been working on for 20 years seems to actually be working. Let's check what happens when we set it on fire!"
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>Most people I talk to don't recognize the importance of room temperature superconductivity. I don't. I read someone saying it would be the biggest breakthrough since fire. Is that true or hyperbole?
Thats kinda hyperbolic. Its more like the transistor.
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I actually appreciate that caution. Things have been extremely up in the air and it would be very hard to properly explain what is happening, how it matters and if it matters. The last part I think is why it's a good thing that they held back. There was enough unknown that it wasn't clear if this would ever amount to anymore than "some scientists may or may not have made a big mistake." I think we are hitting the poi…
After racing with each other to fuel political extremism or push the corporate narratives like how working from home is terrible for the worker or how good it is for us that the rich don’t pay the taxes, how unaffordable housing is good for the economy… this is what they choose to be careful about? Nah, this just doesn’t sell or is not a paid article.
the dft results are definitely interesting, but i note that with the caveat that my background is in experimental condensed matter physics for materials like this and not theoretical, my understanding is that the dominant feature of the conclusions (the flat bands) is a necessary but not sufficient condition for superconductivity in the way the authors describe. again, in experimental condensed matter physics it's ac…
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Unfortunately, while you can indeed build hoverboards with superconductors and they do work, you still need a magnetic surface for it to ride over. I don't believe generalized hoverboards that will work on all surfaces like BttF are possible.
What about Earth's magnetic field?
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All the smart people in the US work in tech and finance. If you have a big ole' brain, why would you take $80k to work in some crumby lab when you can get paid $350k to maintain a login screen from the comfort of your mountain side home.
Because “smart” and “monomaniacally focused on financial gain” are two separate things?
> 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 ♫
Wouldn't that just make gold even more valuable (and thus more killing will ensue, even ignoring the high energy weapons).
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I think it's more likely that the bulk of folks don't fully comprehend why this would be so important. I would imagine alot of reporters look at the things they could write about and the choices are politics, war, polarizing news, or nerds nerding hard trying to prove other nerds right or wrong, and it just doesn't make the cut.
Newspapers don't work like that. The same reporter isn't responsible for politics, war, and science—they specialize, and a dedicated science reporter is going to be at least as savvy as a random commenter on HN. They may want to cover it and just have a hard time explaining it to their editor, but I think "we can afford to wait until a peer reviewed paper comes out" is more likely.