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

Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 1001 posts

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#461

Post by pcrh »

jjallen wrote: post #432

One somewhat ironic fact of this story is that the rogue former employee perhaps deserves some credit for bringing this thing out into the world. They had been working on this for quite a long time themselves, rightfully so. But now the whole world is working on it and exploring other methods and combinations of materials I would assume (to improve upon the original design and avoid any patents). How long would they…

There's apparently a patent published in 2020. It surprises me that it never gained attention.

edit:

KR20210062550A - Mehtod of manufacturing ceramic composite with low resistance including superconductors and the composite thereof -

https://patents.google.com/patent/KR20210062550A/en

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#462

Post by kzrdude »

someplaceguy wrote: post #141
ChuckMcM wrote: post #129

For those experiencing this type of "black swan, but good" event for the first time, it is helpful to recognize that the human tendency to believe that all future "big events" will be dystopian downers, is statistically unsound. For a while I've kept a list of the things that could be "good" swan events, but to be fair I didn't have "room temperature superconductor on that list" :-) Other things that could happen: 1)…

It would have been more convincing if you had given real past examples rather than speculative future ones :) Although I'm pretty sure there are plenty that many people can think of, so it doesn't really detract much from your point.

Fall of the Berlin Wall should probably be on a list of black swan but good events.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#463

Post by tcmb »

ricardobayes wrote: post #426

For me it's also interesting how we closed the gap between scientific discoveries and the general public to know about them. With the advent of pre-print servers, you can read this basically "next day".

I see this as a double-edged sword, at best. There is a reason why papers used to be published only after they were peer-reviewed. Now the media are starting hype-cycles on unreviewed research results, just to get the ad impressions before anyone else does. But I'm not sure if they are as diligent about following up on these stories and making later negative result front-page news as well.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#464

Post by dumdumchan »

themagician wrote: post #206
nocoder wrote: post #139

I get the idea of superconductivity at room temperature in theory. But I don't have enough knowledge to understand in real terms, how will the world change if this is true?

Railguns. Everywhere.

Nukes. everywhere.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#465

Post by throw__away7391 »

anovikov wrote: post #385
nindalf wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auctions, sanitary towels, retirement, banking, disposable razor, sewing machine, canned food, interchangeable parts, antibiotics, solar cells, postage stamp, light bulb, pencil, air conditioning, insurance, dwarf wheat, spreadsheet, cold chain, double entry book-keeping, S-bend, infant formula, clocks, public key cryptography, passports, batteries, printing press, video games, GPS, contraceptive pill, shipping conta…

Passports are not a good invention. They are a dystopian evil we grew to take for granted and even see as something that exists for our own benefit. Before WWI there were no passports and no need for them. Those were Good Old Days that are not coming back. It's weird to see some people seeing some kind of benefit in them.

Travel is more free today compared to in the past, at least in for example Europe. You used to need traveling papers from your boss/master/lord granting you specific permission to travel, otherwise you could be arrested. People didn’t trust visitors in general outside of some specific circumstances.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#466

Post by sparrowInHand »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #129

For those experiencing this type of "black swan, but good" event for the first time, it is helpful to recognize that the human tendency to believe that all future "big events" will be dystopian downers, is statistically unsound. For a while I've kept a list of the things that could be "good" swan events, but to be fair I didn't have "room temperature superconductor on that list" :-) Other things that could happen: 1)…

If you experience dystopian events, you cease to be, preventing information pass on. All instincts and warning signals, by there very nature are accurate, until they can not be any more.

How do you build a warning system for a unsurvivable event, with not wittnesses? Eternal unease and anxiety, regardless of reality.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#467

Post by iraqmtpizza »

nindalf wrote: post #354
smsm42 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But other than that, what the Romans have ever done for us?!

Apart from the aqueduct, sanitation, roads, irrigation, medicine, education, wine, public baths and public order - the Romans didn’t really do much at all.

[flagged]

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#468

Post by jjallen »

jjallen wrote: post #432

One somewhat ironic fact of this story is that the rogue former employee perhaps deserves some credit for bringing this thing out into the world. They had been working on this for quite a long time themselves, rightfully so. But now the whole world is working on it and exploring other methods and combinations of materials I would assume (to improve upon the original design and avoid any patents). How long would they…

I'd like to add that if this claim of having replicated the material with the reportedly poor description of how to do so is true then it really isn't that hard to replicate. I am surprised they haven't published a paper by now.

And this suggests that they were conflicted for some reason about publishing, likely commercially so (as evidenced about the patent). Maybe they were trying to create a product with it that they could sell before others could replicate the material.

So the rogue employee does absolutely deserve credit for bringing this thing into the world and humanity should not stigmatize them for doing so; perhaps we should do exactly the opposite.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#469

Post by iraqmtpizza »

anovikov wrote: post #385
nindalf wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auctions, sanitary towels, retirement, banking, disposable razor, sewing machine, canned food, interchangeable parts, antibiotics, solar cells, postage stamp, light bulb, pencil, air conditioning, insurance, dwarf wheat, spreadsheet, cold chain, double entry book-keeping, S-bend, infant formula, clocks, public key cryptography, passports, batteries, printing press, video games, GPS, contraceptive pill, shipping conta…

Passports are not a good invention. They are a dystopian evil we grew to take for granted and even see as something that exists for our own benefit. Before WWI there were no passports and no need for them. Those were Good Old Days that are not coming back. It's weird to see some people seeing some kind of benefit in them.

so how do you keep the illegals out

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#470

Post by mrtksn »

pjungwir wrote: post #207

The last week reminds me of the story of Bardeen & Brattain's invention of the transistor (e.g. in The Idea Factory ). It barely worked and heaven forbid you bump the table. There was even a third slighted figure who wanted credit. Part of me wants to be skeptical but OTOH if it's hard to reproduce that seems totally normal. How exciting that some other people have got it working now.

Things also tend to be invented at about the same time at different places. I wonder if there are other people who were this close to invent it but just couldn't get it right.
Post reply on HN