So what are some examples of benefits that a room temperature super conductor would allow?
Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
191–200 of 209 posts
Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
If this could be simulated, can you help me understand why we couldn't have used simulation to find promising SC materials to investigate further earlier? Are there just too many permutations to investigate? It seems to my own naive self that if LK99 is the real deal, we mostly just got lucky finding it.
Not an expert but it just happen that my lab is full of DFT folks so I heard a lot about those everyweek. As people above already answered the questions, I gonna talk some extras. 1. Computation cost is large. 1 compute task for a small scale ~100 atoms last about 3 days to 1 week on supercomputer. 2. Search space is hugh. For each composition you can have different atomic (or crystal) structure. And here we are talk…
The other thing is that a lot of the results depend entirely on what you put into them. Sounds lovely and obvious, but really isn't. Which basis set would you use for simulating your molecular object of interest? There are hundreds to choose from, all developed for different purposes and under different assumptions (eg "frozen core", Born Oppenheimer, Slater orbitals, etc). It's very much not trivial to know what you need, because what the system does answers that question, and in order to find out what the system does you need to solve it -- for which you need a basis set!
It's hard enough to get out the hyperfine interaction to the right order of magnitude of a simple metal complex, let alone something like superconductivity, which fundamentally is a many, many body problem...
Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#193Dumb question: why all the fuss ? I have checked a bit on the web but I fail to grasp the practical consequences of it (I mean if LK99 is the thing)). Could someone explain what could be done with that material ? For example, if we can transport electricity with a super conductor over long dsitances (1000 of kms), then what happens ? Is it just an incremental progress or is it a huge breakthrough ? (I am not much tra…
One high-level, back of napkin example that gets thrown around is that the world would magically get 40% more power due to reduction in transmission losses. The world spends $6,000b a year on energy purposes. So a $2,400b/year opportunity. And that's just from transmission let alone the many other things it can do.
> the world would magically get 40% more power due to reduction in transmission losses
But what effort is needed? Wouldn’t it require replacing all batteries and transmission lines to realize this efficiency gain?
Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#194Out of curiosity, since this seems like a real inflection point toward trending in that direction, if it becomes increasingly likely that LK-99 or similar material is indeed a high-TC superconductor, what will savvy people be positioning themselves to do? What are good investments? What companies will be started, or what will existing companies be pivoting toward?
> What are good investments? Open-ended research grants to anyone with moderate training in experimental science to just throw shit against the wall and try every last possible combination of something, without concern for 'publish or perish' or jockeying for status in academia. Lets get our smartest and most dedicated technical people back in labs rather than off making CRUD apps for 10x academic wages. If this disc…
This has been argued by David Deutsch for a long time and I'm glad to see it being replicated here. People should be free to pursue problems that interest them without fear of not returning results that are not deemed "favourable" to the institution. This will help speed up the creation of new "good explanations" which leads to new knowledge.
Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't reproduce in that case, which is a useful data point but may not be the final word. The article linked in this thread suggests why making it may not be all that easy.
I'm just saying that it's not really LK-99, then. It's something else that needs to be specified more precisely.
Essentially all of my knowledge of materials science comes from reading HN's discussion of this over the last ten days, but I've read repeatedly that these kinds of synthesis processes are not very reliable. Even with well known materials with well known "recipes," someone trained can follow a procedure apparently to the letter and get no result, and then repeat the procedure apparently the same and get a good result.
Semiconductor yield at high end fabs can be lower than 20%. If you tried that process at a new fab and wound up with a complete failure, would you say "well that process just doesn't produce any semiconductors" or would you think you might need to refine the implementation of the process.
Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately the problem with electric aviation isn't the storage tech. Although having superconductors around would make the ground infrastructure nicer, if the current density limit works out.
Whats the problem with electric aviation?
Getting enough energy into enough planes fast enough at enough airports to make a dent. As a guide to the order of magnitude of the problem, consider that a 747 needs roughly 100MW to stay airborne.
Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#197Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parameter space for such a search even with a limited number candidate materials is immense. You'd need to guide the search somehow, that band structure might be the one, or it may not be... and every candidate that you flag will have to be synthesized which may not be all that easy.
Sounds like a good challenge for (Open)AI
What makes a language model well-suited to this task?
Re: Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in LK99
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
From her wikipedia page, Sinéad Griffin is an Irish physicist, so she seems a native English speaker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_Griffin
I wanted to comment on a paper by some different group. It's confusing with all those papers floating around on HN.
What? So you didn't even click the paper being discussed here and just threw in a comment criticizing some entirely different person's mastery of english
"I don't like the waiters in this restaurant"
"Have you ever eaten here?"
"Oh. No. I mean the other restaurant."
"Which restaurant?"
"I mean one of those other restaurants in town. Don't like 'em. They talk funny."