Live data from Hacker News

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

arxiv.org

71–80 of 1001 posts

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

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the host of “in 30 years we would have X” made 40 years ago are suddenly manifesting.

Im posting this reply from my mainstream smartphone: a pocket supercomputer with a 4K 60Hz HDR video camera. I’m chock full of designer vaccines and can watch a catalog of almost all the movies ever made on demand tonight. I listened to an podcast in my EV on the way to work. And SpaceX probably launched 60 satellites this week on the 14th flight of a rocket that flew home afterwards. Things have been moving along. e…

And it’s only going to get faster… unless it all ends suddenly.

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

#72

If this thing really was super conducting, they should be able to rotate the sample upside down from flux pinning right? That's why this thing is probably just a magnet and not a superconductor??

The paper shows that the sample isn't attracted to the magnet, only repulsed.

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

#73
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it depends on jurisdiction, but in the US, you can't patent a material, only a method to make it. If I recall correctly, their patent for method covered a wide range of constituent elements, but left off gold. I would feel pretty bad for them if they genuinely discovered an RTP superconductor but that omission prevents them from becoming billionaires. But more likely the issue is that their current method ha…

That's kind of my thinking - there is almost no chance they stumbled upon nirvana + did it in the best or most efficient way. There must be many possible optimizations to the chemical structure + fabrication techniques. Is it possible that the inventors do not receive a dime of royalties?

I don't want to caveat a bunch of stuff with "IANAL" but I am not.

However, they have told me what I interpreted to mean that if someone improves it but uses it then they need to license the underlying patent. That just makes sense, it's required in order to implement their concept.

And in reverse the original company can keep doing whatever they want as long as it isn't covered by the referencing patent. Makes sense to me there too, if they come up with some other clever way to make it good enough more power to them. There's no reason for them to pay some other people who patented something they don't use.

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

#74

I'm not too familiar with this space. Could someone explain how big of an impact to the world this discovery is? What does the future of this technology look like over the next 5 years?

I think with a solid verification of superconductivity at room temperature, we probably don't see anything in 5 years, just because the production is so hit or miss. But I do think we see massive investment and research on this line of materials and different production techniques. Going from Science to Engineering and making this a thing you have plant making. I think its a 10+ year thing but its big.

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

#75
All of the "it floats" videos are unattributed leaks or come from less-than-reputable sources.

The reputable sources only ever show videos of the sample touching the magnet.

From what I'm reading, several different types of materials can angle themselves like this from a magnet, but only Type II superconductors will float above a single monolithic magnet.

Until we see a confirmed video from a reputable source of a visible gap between the sample and the magnet, it's not confirmed that LK-99 is superconducting.

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

#76

I hope Smith charts become less required learning. When I was in school, I could not wrap my head around them. I should look at them against. (Yes, of course you’d still need to account for traditional loads)

This simplifies them a fair bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXWbdxOAuDs

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

#77
post #59

On a completely different front, let's say the paper completely checks out and they have discovered this miracle. How strong are the patent protections on materials science? For example, if someone could replicate the effect with lead + gold, would that be considered a novel material which would not be subject to licensing? Is it the material itself or the method of production?

I'm sure it depends on jurisdiction, but in the US, you can't patent a material, only a method to make it. If I recall correctly, their patent for method covered a wide range of constituent elements, but left off gold. I would feel pretty bad for them if they genuinely discovered an RTP superconductor but that omission prevents them from becoming billionaires. But more likely the issue is that their current method ha…

> in the US, you can't patent a material

I'm no patent lawyer, but there is literally a US patent-office category covering "material" for exactly this kind of invention. Section 505 - "Superconductor Technology: Apparatus, Material, Process".

> This is the generic class for subject matter involving (a) superconductor technology above 30 K and (b) Art collections involving superconductor technology. Apparatus, devices, materials, and processes involving such technology are included herein.

https://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/classification/uspc505/def...

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

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the host of “in 30 years we would have X” made 40 years ago are suddenly manifesting.

What is interesting is that assuming it all pans out these are all in entirely unrelated fields. That sets the stage for a whole raft of follow on inventions. Similar to how the telephone + basic electromagnetism led to radio, tv, radar, transistors and ultimately to computers small enough to be practical for businesses, the internet, cell phones and so on. My grandmother was born in a house without running water, no…

Yeah - I think the next 40 years are going to be absolutely stunning to witness. It’s an amazing time to be alive and be a nerd.

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

#79

This makes me so happy for my children and their children. God bless those scientists and all scientists that push our species forward. I'm so lucky to be in my prime at the same time AGI and superconductors become a reality. Wow.

> AGI

Wait, I missed that one. Was it yesterday?

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

#80
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it depends on jurisdiction, but in the US, you can't patent a material, only a method to make it. If I recall correctly, their patent for method covered a wide range of constituent elements, but left off gold. I would feel pretty bad for them if they genuinely discovered an RTP superconductor but that omission prevents them from becoming billionaires. But more likely the issue is that their current method ha…

You can get a composition of matter patent ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composition_of_matter ) for something shockingly novel, and this might be. It's super hard to find anything that would qualify, but I've been awarded them before for materials science research. You can write stuff down generally enough that it's hard to make small changes and get around it. I did a lot of "1-10%" stuff in the claims.

Ah, teaches me to try to be lawyer :)

The patent is here for reference: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2023027536A1/en

And yeah, they left off Au.

Post reply on HN