That is an interesting observation and puts words to some thoughts that I've had: if it turns out that this is 'the real thing' and the patent holds up South Korea is suddenly a superpower.
IP laws--should any even apply--won't prevent any state from using this material should the claims be proven true.
Of course it won't. But then I predict that there will be a massive impact on IP laws as a construct. Because this is the one that counts, if they don't work here they're doomed.
It's confusing. You'd expect both to be present or none, it is strange to have a material that is conducting and diamagnetic at room temperature and that shows super conductivity at much lower temperature. You'd expect the diamagnetism to disappear with the superconductivity.
Observed effects which have been given a name != a single universal truth. Just because we have experimental evidence of effects and theoretical explanations for their occurrence prove we actually have defined the underlying phenomenon's which produce the observed effect accurately. The reason we experiment isn't to prove our theories are correct so much as it is to probe where they break down so we can further refin…
Yes, that's true, but that would require a shift in our understanding of physics and everything about this saga so far has not done that. And that in part is a reason why people take this serious: it is believable. New physics would raise the bar considerably.
So for now I'm on the measuring error, impurity or process issue side of that without committing to which team I think has the problematic side.
That is an interesting observation and puts words to some thoughts that I've had: if it turns out that this is 'the real thing' and the patent holds up South Korea is suddenly a superpower.
I don't think you can patent a material, just the methods you use to produce it. And if this is the real thing, there are probably dramatically more efficient ways to produce than this first step.
It's confusing. You'd expect both to be present or none, it is strange to have a material that is conducting and diamagnetic at room temperature and that shows super conductivity at much lower temperature. You'd expect the diamagnetism to disappear with the superconductivity.
Multiple teams have said they had to produce 10 batches just to get one sample with properties worth reporting on. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that different teams are all ending up with different variations of a common material, with different impurities, crystal structure, etc. There's likely a whole zoo of interesting materials here!
More than likely there is only one interesting material in this specific composition. But understanding the phenomenon we are observing in this material can potentially lead to the development of other materials which display these characteristics, and tune those to function in this way at specific temperature/pressure situations. If we develop efficient ways to produce these materials in bulk (which is orders of magnitude more complicated than just characterizing what we see here) it would be unimaginably revolutionary. But the energy required to do this at scale will likely require our civilization to utilize orders of magnitude more energy, so if this is practical for our daily lives on a wide scale I believe it's development will be contingent on harnessing fusion. Otherwise it will be limited to only the most extreme use cases in the way superconductors are currently used now.
That is an interesting observation and puts words to some thoughts that I've had: if it turns out that this is 'the real thing' and the patent holds up South Korea is suddenly a superpower.
I don't think you can patent a material, just the methods you use to produce it. And if this is the real thing, there are probably dramatically more efficient ways to produce than this first step.
I don't think you should be able to, but there is this story that I read a while ago that makes it seem like you can:
There are multiple mentions of "extraterrestrial super islands", is this a mistranslation of the Meissner effect? Great term nonetheless.
It's the mistranslation of room-temperature superconductivity. "super islands" is likely translated from 超岛 which sounds the same as 超导 (superconductivity). I have no idea how 室温 (room-temperature) became extraterrestrial, must be extraordinarily bad speech to text model. edit: could be 室温 (shi4wen1) -> shi4wai4 -> 室外(outdoors)/世外(out of this world) -> extraterrestrial
I wish I could learn CJK. Will take a lifetime to master.
That is an interesting observation and puts words to some thoughts that I've had: if it turns out that this is 'the real thing' and the patent holds up South Korea is suddenly a superpower.
That doesn't follow at all. Lead and copper aren't exclusive to South Korea. The authors get prestige and the owners of whatever patents are granted get some money.
Carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur make up the bulk of organic molecules and plenty of those are covered by world wide patents (drugs).
This appears to be a great result. "Room temperature" super conductor result? No. But this is basically showing there is some superconductivity in the sample, and cooler temperatures expose intrinsic band structures. Pretty exciting!
How is it exciting? It invalidates the original claim. We already have better SC.