Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 906 posts

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#231

Post by alexb_ »

scarmig wrote: post #148
coolspot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure Is it late April Fools joke? It can’t be true. Edit: I am not surprised it levitates. I am astonished by how much it will reshape our world if it is real room-temp and ambient-pressure superconductor. Also is easy to produce. Just too good to be true.

Levitation is to be expected for any superconductor when it's in a superconducting state; that part is banal. The big question is whether it's actually a superconductor at RTP. Their results are strong enough that it's unlikely to be a mistake, though fraud is possible too (although it is so easily uncovered given the simplicity of preparing the material and the strength of the reported effects that fraud seems almos…

Just give it to me straight - when will the levitation give us hoverboards?

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#232

Post by colechristensen »

amluto wrote: post #145
PaulHoule wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike those guys in Rochester, this seems to be a good experiment that is testing many of the signs of superconductivity.

The actual picture of (poor) levitation in the paper you linked is pretty compelling. This isn’t a complex, noisy measurement showing something that’s related to superconductivity — this is a magnet and a supposed superconductor repelling each other. As far as I know, that’s possible with permanent magnets (and it would be weird, but not impossible, if the group instead synthesized a novel ferromagnet and didn’t noti…

>As far as I know, that’s possible with permanent magnets (and it would be weird, but not impossible, if the group instead synthesized a novel ferromagnet and didn’t notice)

As far as I know a stable arrangement of permanent magnets levitating is impossible without a baring surface to keep them aligned. (i.e. free floating levitation is not possible without active control)

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#233

Post by gene-h »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #152
scarmig wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Levitation is to be expected for any superconductor when it's in a superconducting state; that part is banal. The big question is whether it's actually a superconductor at RTP. Their results are strong enough that it's unlikely to be a mistake, though fraud is possible too (although it is so easily uncovered given the simplicity of preparing the material and the strength of the reported effects that fraud seems almos…

The recipe in the paper is so simple that it's giving me Pons-Fleischmann vibes. It reads more like an entry from an alchemist's journal, reproducible with chemicals and equipment you could buy on eBay or Amazon. So, yeah: big if true.

This isn't too different from how conventional high temperature superconductors are made.[0] A converted pottery kiln can be used to make them

[0]https://www.greenoptimistic.com/make-superconductor-home/

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#234

Post by piyh »

sudosysgen wrote: post #155
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It probably wouldn't greatly affect the heat generation in a PC, unless the transistors could themselves be replaced with some superconducting alternative. Harnessing the efficiency from that would probably require that the computer be designed as a reversible computer. It would be its own research avenue.

Unfortunately, as soon as you actually use the result of the computation in any kind of practical manner as an output, you break reversibility, though you could make the heat production happen away from the computation.

Pentium 4 to 10 GHz, here we come!

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#237

Post by littlestymaar »

MayeulC wrote: post #184
HDThoreaun wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A material with no electrical resistance. Build a wire out of it and the voltage will be the same on both ends.

That also means that electrons flow unimpeded from one side to the other. Great for energy transmission (though you can't put too much current, superconductivity breaks down under strong fields). Great for fast circuits, such as CPUs, that don't waste energy just transmitting data. Great for storing energy (in principle) by just making a loop and let current flow indefinitely. Related, great for building powerful mag…

> This one contains lead, which is a non-starter for a lot of applications due to its toxicity.

We've been using cadmium-based batteries for ages despite Cadmium being even more toxic than lead, and are still using lead batteries in ICE cars AFAIK. Lead toxicity isn't really a problem unless you burn it, deliver water through it or you put it on paint that end up in kids' mouth…

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#238

Post by PlasmonOwl »

amluto wrote: post #145
PaulHoule wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike those guys in Rochester, this seems to be a good experiment that is testing many of the signs of superconductivity.

The actual picture of (poor) levitation in the paper you linked is pretty compelling. This isn’t a complex, noisy measurement showing something that’s related to superconductivity — this is a magnet and a supposed superconductor repelling each other. As far as I know, that’s possible with permanent magnets (and it would be weird, but not impossible, if the group instead synthesized a novel ferromagnet and didn’t noti…

I would say that this type of levitation where it sort of half levitates is quite common. I taught YBaCuO superconductor experiments for a few years. That Meisner effect would get full marks in my institution!

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#239

Post by inasio »

coolspot wrote: post #121
sheepscreek wrote: post #48

One of the authors in a related paper[1] is Hyun-Tak Kim. He has many publications in peer-reviewed journals[2]. One even has > 1500 citations[3]. I can't tell if there is a catch anywhere, this seems pretty legitimate. Also, unlike some previous claims that required sophisticated setup to reproduce, this seems dead simple. I think we will hear from other researchers very soon. 1. Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O show…

> Superconductor Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure Is it late April Fools joke? It can’t be true. Edit: I am not surprised it levitates. I am astonished by how much it will reshape our world if it is real room-temp and ambient-pressure superconductor. Also is easy to produce. Just too good to be true.

One obvious application: your family doctor will have an MRI machine in her office, same for all physio clinics

Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?

#240

Post by stronglikedan »

chris_va wrote: post #226
megaman821 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What material and setup could even fake that result?

A moving magnetic field will move around any conductor, it doesn't have to be superconducting. A better video would be nice.

But it wouldn't lock the target in place when they stop, which is what this video demonstrates very well. The conductor would move towards the magnet and try to stick to it.
Post reply on HN