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LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

nature.com

751–754 of 754 posts

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#751
post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They achieved this fusion by creating a container of material that produced massive amounts of xrays when it was bombarded by a high powered laser. These xrays caused another container's surface to ablate at such a rate it compressed its interior to the point that fusion was achieved. You are telling me that a US weapons lab just announced a successful path to a laser triggered pure fusion bomb? Yikes! Not actually…

I think the most efficient means of delivering so much xrays that kilograms of material can fuse is with the primary stage of an hbomb, which is just an implosion fission bomb. I wouldn't be too worried about this test creating a new weapon. However... In the early 80s, the SDI initiative aimed to have orbiting satellites that utilized x-ray lasers to shoot down incoming warheads. The theory of these were you had h-b…

> I think the most efficient means of delivering so much xrays that kilograms of material can fuse is with the primary stage of an hbomb, which is just an implosion fission bomb.

I agree with you, if you have fission triggers, you aren't going to want to use lasers. At least with today's lasers.

> I wouldn't be too worried about this test creating a new weapon.

My concern is that NNP has focused on controlling access to fissionable material, so potentially this is a path to h-bomb that doesn't require fissionable material. As lasers get better, secondaries that don't use controlled fission materials become a risk. At what point does the world start having to worry about controlling access to lasers? How does this impact the future research and funding of lasers?

Additionally if you can test h-bombs without tests. This also makes it easier to develop and test a h-bomb without revealing you have an h-bomb. Typically nuclear weapons tests are detectable via seismographs.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 opt…

You want an optimistic outlook, give reasons to be optimistic.

We are humans, the greatest species on the planet. Even before industrialisation we lived on almost every continent ranging from scorching deserts to blizzard-filled snowlands.

Humans are the greatest adaptors to a given environment, even if the climate catastrophising ends up being true, we will survive.

How to be really optimistic?

Get away from the news, social media. Spend more time on hobbbies, family and friends. Do something for your community.

These things will make you happier

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not the one deciding on terminology. In this case, both copper and aluminium are crystalline metals. Any lump of these is actually formed of a lot of smaller crystals bunched up together in what we call polycrystals. This is why they don't have the nice geometrical shapes people tend to associate with crystals in pop culture. But depending on how the material was made, these geometrical features can be seen with…

> I am not the one deciding on terminology. No, you're just the one pedantically enforcing a definition that's irrelevant to the conversation at large. You aren't holding up your end of the conversation. Being a good listener means putting some effort into understanding what people are trying to say even if they get terminology a bit wrong. Jumping in to correct people on minor misuses of terminology doesn't show you…

Ok, I doubt anyone is still reading this, but anyway…

> No, you're just the one pedantically enforcing a definition that's irrelevant to the conversation at large.

I am not enforcing anything. How could I, anyway? I am pointing out an error in terminology. It is far from irrelevant, all the threads about that subject are full of misinterpretations and misunderstandings. One of the reason for that is that scientific articles use the jargon of the field, which can deviate from how certain words are used in our daily lives.

> You aren't holding up your end of the conversation. Being a good listener means putting some effort into understanding what people are trying to say even if they get terminology a bit wrong. Jumping in to correct people on minor misuses of terminology doesn't show you're smart, it shows that you care more about correcting them than about their ideas.

It is not a small vocabulary issue. This stuff is fundamental materials science and you cannot understand anything about this subject if you are confused about this. Again, this thread is full of people who are confused because they don’t understand some words in the same way as the writer. Crystalline and amorphous materials have very different properties as far as conductivity is concerned. The crystalline aspect is fundamental.

> I mean, cool, good to know copper and aluminum are crystalline metals, but the point here is that they're ductile and LK-99 isn't--you can't make wires out of LK-99. Arguing that copper and aluminum are crystals isn't adding to the conversation, it's just missing the point.

What is missing the point is that we know how to make wires with brittle materials. Prime examples are silica in fibre optics and YBCO in superconducting tape. And yes, whether they are crystalline or not is very important for both of them.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want an optimistic outlook, give reasons to be optimistic.

We are humans, the greatest species on the planet. Even before industrialisation we lived on almost every continent ranging from scorching deserts to blizzard-filled snowlands. Humans are the greatest adaptors to a given environment, even if the climate catastrophising ends up being true, we will survive. How to be really optimistic? Get away from the news, social media. Spend more time on hobbbies, family and friend…

Sorry but wet bulb temperature is a lot lower than you think it is. Your comment will age badly, to put it mildly.
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