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LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

nature.com

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Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#641

Post by criley2 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #532
hunson_abadeer wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is precisely what put me off in these discussions. Not the idea that we might have found a room-temperature superconductor - that part was exciting. It's the part where people confidently talked about its applications without realizing that they probably wouldn't revolutionize CPU performance (Josephson junctions don't seem to work well as non-cryogenic temperatures for reasons unrelated to superconductivity), p…

> transmission lines are already pretty efficient and we already choose less efficient materials for cost You're correct, and this highlights a problem I often see in discussions: "efficiency" just is a measure of benefit/cost. Without knowing the units of benefit and cost, people aren't making meaningful statements when they say "efficient". The important efficiency of transmission lines is capacity per dollar, not…

This is an absolutely disingenuous point that compares the cost of full-economy-of-scale tech to literal one off R&D prototypes.

Maybe new technology made in a lab can one day scale up and compete against current low-cost high-scale solutions. Crazy idea, I know.

However, trying to artificially limit all discussion about R&D and future tech by claiming "it's more expensive than fully scaled solutions" has got to be full luddism. This loom prototype is too expensive! I can hire a man for a shilling a day!

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#642

Post by ajani »

exmadscientist wrote: post #580
ajani wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which point would be enough by itself for you to discount him totally?

Honestly? His mannerisms was all we really needed. He was not well liked in his year, and that takes some doing to achieve these days. The smug "how could I be wrong" when he was, well, 26 orders of magnitude wrong, is special even by entitled scientist standards.

Yes, how we behave usually trumps how true/false our ideas are.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#643

Post by andy_ppp »

I did wonder if we suddenly could produce loads of room temperature super conductors if eventually we’d start to affect earth’s magnetic field; I learned that super conductors basically force magnetic fields around them and do not allow them to pass through. If they started to be used everywhere from power lines to train lines to computer chips we might start to cause unintended consequences. Does anyone have an idea if this is a real concern?

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#644

Post by laputan_machine »

penjelly wrote: post #263
sorenjan wrote: post #237

Sixty Symbols released a video about this yesterday, and in it professor Philip Moriarty is less than impressed with the whole ordeal. I haven't been paying attention, I'm too jaded and skeptical and assumed from the start that there was something wrong and much hype about nothing. Bad Science and Room Temperature Superconductors - Sixty Symbols: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-AgmoZ5mo

everyone in this thread should watch this, instead of "the excitement was good for everyone" they might realize these hoaxes harm scientific integrity. The audacity of HN to state something is good, without listening to scientists give their take on it.

You couldn't be more wrong. Getting people excited about possible technological advnacements is exactly the kind of thing we should be doing, we used to do this, in the 50s up until the 90s the prospect of the future was exciting.

What is the medias representation of the future now? A burning shithole, no future. It's depressing and not true. I enjoyed the few days of excitement, I want us to go back to having an optimistic outlook on the future of humanity.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#645

Post by laputan_machine »

seewhydee wrote: post #505
sorenjan wrote: post #237

Sixty Symbols released a video about this yesterday, and in it professor Philip Moriarty is less than impressed with the whole ordeal. I haven't been paying attention, I'm too jaded and skeptical and assumed from the start that there was something wrong and much hype about nothing. Bad Science and Room Temperature Superconductors - Sixty Symbols: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-AgmoZ5mo

The video really rubbed me the wrong way. I guess it's a persona he's putting on for the YouTube channel, but that "tough minded skeptic" bit is way over the top. He spent all his time criticizing various problems with the LK-99 paper that were indeed problematic (and widely commented on elsewhere), but didn't necessarily falsify the claim (e.g. they might have come from having mixed phase samples). And he did not ta…

Totally agree. I've watched that channel for a long time, and while he's always come across as arrogant, this video pushed me to unsubscribe.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#646

Post by avidiax »

andy_ppp wrote: post #643

I did wonder if we suddenly could produce loads of room temperature super conductors if eventually we’d start to affect earth’s magnetic field; I learned that super conductors basically force magnetic fields around them and do not allow them to pass through. If they started to be used everywhere from power lines to train lines to computer chips we might start to cause unintended consequences. Does anyone have an idea…

We already make so many magnetic fields that are at least locally stronger than the Earth's field.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#647

Post by RhodesianHunter »

timeon wrote: post #462
RhodesianHunter wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't understand where this belief comes from Probably the last 100 or so years where we have largely done exactly that.

Now we are going to pay for that.

We'd be paying had we not done it.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#648

Post by jacquesm »

penjelly wrote: post #209
kergonath wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sentence still does not make sense because the superconductors in the LHC (though, rereading it a couple of times it is somewhat ambiguous) are not high temperature by any definition. Also, again, ceramic high-temperature superconductors are metallic, or they would not be conductors. “Ceramic” and “metallic” are not mutually exclusive in material sciences. There are lots of reasons to use more classical supercond…

can you make wires from cermets? Thats the point. we need a substance that is malleable(?) enough like copper wire that electrons can pass through. Pottery ceramic wont work like that.

> can you make wires from cermets?

Yes, but the minimal bending radius would be far from impressive.

> Thats the point. we need a substance that is malleable(?) enough like copper wire that electrons can pass through.

So many assumptions here. Copper wire is but one form that is useful for energy transport. But superconductors don't need a lot of thickness and parallel layers of tape have enough flex in one dimension to be very useful. Usually they allow for complex routing by adding twists, like flatcable, but given the magnetic fields involved you don't want to do that in free space but firmly tied down to something (preferably something non-magnetic!).

> Pottery ceramic wont work like that.

Ceramics are a vast class of materials, which includes pottery ceramics but also many others which have a very large range and diversity of properties. They are essentially a whole branch on the tree of materials science that range from Tungsten Carbide to diamond to ordinary clay and a whole raft of others.

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