Still not explaining the levitation.
LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
581–590 of 754 posts
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#582It's sad to see people accept the credibility of this article simply because it's from Nature. The author himself is a freelance science journalist (with no real expertise in the field), so this article is not worth any more of our attention than many twitter threads. You can gauge the trustworthiness yourself here: https://x.com/dangaristo?s=21&t=lI9nNO9bkbL1YKFrdIw_Tg
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Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#583The substance produced from the paper isn't a superconductor. While extremely unlikely, there is still a chance that LK-99 is a superconductor, but the paper itself did not sufficiently describe the method needed to make it so as to replicate it properly. We will know the resolution to this once the sample from the original researchers is assessed by a third party, of which there are presently at least two to my unde…
The thing is that there are now multiple independent lines of investigation pointing to LK-99 not being a superconductor, and explaining away the original "smoking guns" offered by the authors. It's like we have a murder suspect, the murder weapon, and fingerprints lifted from the scene. At this point it could still be space aliens, but nobody in their right mind would treat that possibility seriously.
These analogies aren't useful. Much of this process so far has relied upon a single point of failure not failing: that the paper contains the necessary information to replicate and describe the material. If that assumption is wrong, while some science will still remain valid, much of it would turn out to have been unindicative of the actual state of reality.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#584The substance produced from the paper isn't a superconductor. While extremely unlikely, there is still a chance that LK-99 is a superconductor, but the paper itself did not sufficiently describe the method needed to make it so as to replicate it properly. We will know the resolution to this once the sample from the original researchers is assessed by a third party, of which there are presently at least two to my unde…
The German team produced a crystal of pure LK-99 and tested it. From the article: > LK-99 is not a superconductor, but an insulator with a resistance in the millions of ohms And furthermore, the graphs from the original pre-print article are just graphs of the resistivity of Cu2S. It sounds like there's nearly zero chance of any further science here (beyond confirmation).
"A crystal of pure LK-99" is an oxymoron, LK-99, the physical substance in Korea, is not a pure crystal.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm struggling with the claimed consequences. The electricity grid has losses of about 30 percent, so a fully superconducting grid could increase delivered power by about 43 percent, not an order of magnitude more. More compact MRI machines would be nice to have, certainly, but wouldn't materially change mortality. What else is there?
Our electrical grid has losses of 30 percent, even after being designed to minimize those losses. Superconductivity wouldn't simply remove those losses; it would remove that design constraint, enabling (for example) solar panels in the Sahara to power households in Siberia. It would mostly fix the power storage problem for renewables. The point is that at a certain level, a quantifiable increase in efficiency causes…
Yeah, see, it wouldn't.
Transmission lines are priced per kilometre. Superconducting transmission will almost certainly cost more than vanilla SCAW (steel cored aluminum wire), and you still have to pay for pylons, bridges, and/or directional drilling over land, or for laying if on the sea bed.
Return on capital employed drives investment decisions. With the cost of PV, wind, and storage falling rapidly, and the efficiency of PV rising, the numbers are starting to fall out in favour of overbuilding supply near demand (in Siberia, to take your example), not building long transmission lines.
No one lives in Siberia anyway, to a first approximation. No market, no investment.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#586Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aluminum vs copper is a good example. Another is that we already do use superconducting transmission lines in a few places. We could do more of that, but presumably it's expensive to install and/or maintain otherwise we'd be using it everywhere. I'm not sure what the longest or highest capacity superconducting links currently in existence are.
That have to be kept cool with liquid nitrogen, so it would have to be pretty darn short.
I wonder if we can use these superconducters on spacecraft and probes. Maybe we can place superconducting links on the outer hull of a spacecraft heading to Mars, or a probe heading into outer space.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#587It's sad to see people accept the credibility of this article simply because it's from Nature. The author himself is a freelance science journalist (with no real expertise in the field), so this article is not worth any more of our attention than many twitter threads. You can gauge the trustworthiness yourself here: https://x.com/dangaristo?s=21&t=lI9nNO9bkbL1YKFrdIw_Tg
It's quoting several researchers verbatim which gives a clear picture of the compound in question.
At this point it would be a scandal if the quotes were made up or taken out of context. I don't see what is sad about people believing it. Do you go back to the source on every article you read online or in print?
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your specific examples are of media wilfully misunderstanding what the science says in order to sensationalise, and get clicks. Get your science from the newspaper, get trash. Ivermectin, for instance, has been on the World Health Organisation's list of essential medicines for a long time. The replication crisis is a real thing, for sure. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO_Model_List_of_Essential_Me...
I don’t think the media caused the psychology replication crisis. The media plays a part in all this, but the scientific institutions shouldn’t crumble to media or political pressure. See the FDA’s advice on Ivermectin: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-shoul... “Ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective for these indications,” but fail to mention that there is no evidence that it is…
Ivermectin is known to be an anthelminthic: it kills worms. That's what it's approved for. It is not known to have antiviral activity, so it's not approved for that use.
It is acknowledged to be an official medicine for humans, not just an animal remedy as you claimed. Please keep to the point.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#589Earlier quoted context omitted.
Am not the author of that comment, but the fact that comes to mind is that aluminum is used for virtually all transmission and distribution lines - for price reasons - even though copper has better conductivity. If we did discover a room-temperature superconductor, I suspect it would be a while before the cost to produce it in the bulk quantities required for electrical transmission are economically attractive compar…
In some desperate places, people would cut down aluminum power lines and sell them to scrapyards for some quick buck. But copper power lines? Those would be in a similar danger in many more places.
Not only in desperate places. I heard last year (or the year before) someone stole few km of train wire in Germany. Although to this day some people think it was a Russian sabotage rather than genuine theft.
Previously (for example in Poland) I used to hear about things like this all the time until maybe a decade ago.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
That have to be kept cool with liquid nitrogen, so it would have to be pretty darn short.
I wonder if we can use these superconducters on spacecraft and probes. Maybe we can place superconducting links on the outer hull of a spacecraft heading to Mars, or a probe heading into outer space.
Cooling them would still be a problem.
The sunny side might not be the best place for them.
They might find a niche in some instruments in probes, but for wiring it does not make sense. The rest of the probe electronics don't like being that cold.