The Sagan standard is the adage that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (a concept abbreviated as ECREE). But one can hope such evidence is forthcoming. And if it is, then short the oil majors.
The other paper from them claims to have a video of room-temperature magnetic levitation with one of their samples, but I haven't been able to find the link.
The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
481–490 of 906 posts
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#482Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
They've just proven (if true of course) that it's possible at all. That is a massive, massive leap. And once it's possible, it won't be long until it's optimized. We've seen this everywhere -- transistors were once huge and now nanometers; solar cells have improved in every where; batteries are cheaper and better than ever.
I was with you on the first part. If this proves room-temperature/ambient-pressure is possible at all, that is huge. Not so sure about the "won't be long until it's optimized," though. There are a lot of examples where something seems perpetually 20 years away. I'd advise tempering the transistor-based optimism with just a skosh of fusion energy skepticism.
>There are a lot of examples where something seems perpetually 20 years away. I'd advise tempering the transistor-based optimism with just a skosh of fusion energy skepticism.
most of the common examples are in-the-works or exist in some form, they just don't satisfy the 'every-person' checkbox yet.
AI? sure. Flying cars? sure. Robots? sure.
Fusion is in the works, too. Tens of billions of dollars being thrown into the ring by private capital -- and recently -- which is a pretty good indicator of 'perceived realistic' historically.
Also, it's kind of apples/oranges. We had equivalent mechanisms before the transistor, transistors just lead to extreme miniaturization of logic gates that we now enjoy. Fusion energy production doesn't (really) have that equivalent.
similarly : room temperature atmospheric pressure superconductors are a new thing if proven possible.
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#484Guys, even if everything in this paper is true, the material as it is might have limited applications. From what they show, the critical field and critical current seem very low. 2500 Oe is like 0.25 Tesla. Even REBCO at 77K is >1T. And 2500 Oe is not even at critical temperature but much lower. From skimming through the article I couldn't find the sample size of the current measurement to get the critical current de…
You can improve the current density a lot if you can make a single crystal, or at least make your crystal grains larger.
Impure superconductor samples often come out as a spongy mixture of superconducting and non-superconducting bits, the critical current is limited because less then 25% of the cross section is actually carrying current. When I was DIYing YBCO this is what happened most of the time. Every now and then you would get a good one.
See this patent for growing single crystals of YBCO. https://patents.google.com/patent/US6046139A/en
edit: Actually if you look at the sample picture in the paper on page 7, it looks like spongy crap. Nobel prize winning spongy crap, but still. I would expect the numbers to improve as better crystal growing methods are found.
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#485Guys, even if everything in this paper is true, the material as it is might have limited applications. From what they show, the critical field and critical current seem very low. 2500 Oe is like 0.25 Tesla. Even REBCO at 77K is >1T. And 2500 Oe is not even at critical temperature but much lower. From skimming through the article I couldn't find the sample size of the current measurement to get the critical current de…
> the material as it is might have limited applications Is LK-99 part of a larger (either known or emerging) class of materials? I'm not understanding what the lead and copper ions are doing to create internal stress, and why that leads to superconductivity.
Just like in previous super conductor findings once a material is made and understood that usually paves the way to new discoveries, sometimes those are (big) improvements on the status quo. I'd expect this finding - assuming it is true and verified - to result in massive funding towards the material science labs to try to improve on it. So I'd say this is example '1' of a new class of materials and if it holds up then probably we will find more members of that class once the mechanisms are understood.
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
One catch would be the use of lead would restrict the use cases fairly heavily
Cobalt is way more toxic than lead and yet every consumer grade lithium ion battery contains it. The fact something is toxic is not that important. What is that we manage the end of life for the products it contains responsibly.
Well yes and that its properly contained or otherwise shown to not pose an ingestion or undue exposure risk
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was with you on the first part. If this proves room-temperature/ambient-pressure is possible at all, that is huge. Not so sure about the "won't be long until it's optimized," though. There are a lot of examples where something seems perpetually 20 years away. I'd advise tempering the transistor-based optimism with just a skosh of fusion energy skepticism.
>There are a lot of examples where something seems perpetually 20 years away. I'd advise tempering the transistor-based optimism with just a skosh of fusion energy skepticism. most of the common examples are in-the-works or exist in some form, they just don't satisfy the 'every-person' checkbox yet. AI? sure. Flying cars? sure. Robots? sure. Fusion is in the works, too. Tens of billions of dollars being thrown into t…
> Fusion energy production doesn't (really) have that equivalent.
It does, actually. It's the miniaturization that's the hard part.
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#488A sister paper [0] has a photo of the material exhibiting the Meisner effect and levitating over a magnet, and claims to have a video too. Either they blatantly photoshopped the photo or they actually made a room temperature super conductor. I can’t see how the could have made a subtle mistake that resulted in magnetic levitation at room temp without making a superconductor. [0] - https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12037
This seems to be the corresponding video (linked in the associated media tab on arXiv): https://sciencecast.org/casts/suc384jly50n
Is there an alternative explanation possible for the video? Couldn't it just be a magnetized piece of ferrite that is magnetized in a weird way causing it to lift up like that on a strong magnet?
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not quite true. There is a Halbach array with a bunch of compensation coils that will nicely center as long as it is moving, no active control or bearing required. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03048... And many others besides. Halbach arrays are fascinating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw%27s_theorem
stationary. Hence the 'as long as it is moving' bit above. Because the motion allows for the coils to generate enough of a current to drive the compensation. So you need a support system to bring the assembly up to a certain minimum speed above which it will stably levitate.
Re: The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?
#490This is an unreviewed preprint coming out of South Korea. If it’s reproducible it would be the biggest scientific discovery of the last hundred years. It will literally reshape the world. However, the most likely thing is they made a mistake and the paper will be withdrawn. But imagine if it’s true.
I don't think mistake is a possibility. If it doesn't superconduct at room temperature, the photo of it levitating has to be faked.
There is also a video posted above from where the photo is taken and it doesn’t look fake.