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A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

science.org

741–750 of 821 posts

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#741
post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's not such a politically popular activity as to attract subsidies; it is tolerated and pitied rather than lauded and promoted

No one is saying they are subsidizing people scavenging. They're talking about farther up the chain.

i think rather that the activities further up the chain are profitmaking industries that are, on net, taxed rather than subsidized

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#742
post #625
post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the things you listed are limited by the conductors in them. The efficiency of high voltage AC power lines is limited by capacitive coupling to ground. Battery charging is limited by the cell chemistry. CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Turns out metals (in particular copper) are already incredibly good conductors.

> CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Technically true but not applicable... Super conducting CPUs already exist (at below room temp), and they don't use semiconductors. They don't have an exact transistor equivalent but use digital logic circuits such as Quantum Flux Parametron (QFP) and rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ), which are comprised of Josephson Junctions [0] which are made fr…

> so far demonstrated to 770GHz for one CPU

That's not a CPU, it's a simple circuit. From the article, "Simple superconducting logic circuits have been shown to operate at speeds of up to 770 gigahertz."

Exotic semiconductor transistors can switch that fast, record being over 800GHz I think. Regular transistors of the type in your phone can probably do around 200-300GHz. Not to say there could not be revolutionary designs opened up with superconducting wires or switches, just the switching speed itself doesn't necessarily tell us one way or the other.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#743
post #335
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your argument that China’s increasing technical prowess will not inevitably result in the US hegemony ending?

Japanese and South Korean increasing technical prowess didn't, why would Chinese be any different? China has serious fundamental problems and if you account for its gigantic population - it's seriously underachieving not only compared to US, but even compared to the rest of the developed world. It's fashionable to talk about China taking over, but it's far from guaranteed. China is pretty much confirmed to be falsify…

Japan and South Korea are allies of the US. They are also much too small in population and resources to reach a level of economic power that would allow them to do anything on their own.

The Chinese Communist party has the resources, people and determination to follow a different course. It might underperform relative to its size, and the one-child policy is going to cause a disastrous demographic situation, but even if you consider just coastal, urban China, that's getting pretty close to US in terms of people and economic power. The communist party is developing its military capabilities at a fast clip, and fusing its military and civilian economies to accelerate its technical development. Where almost every other government has been unable to wrestle control of Internet information, the Chinese Communist party has successfully turned its version of the Internet into an effective tool of govt propaganda and social control.

In other words, there are lots and lots of very concrete reasons to believe that the post-development trajectory of China can be very different from Japan's or South Korea's.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#744
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over a handheld neodymium magnet. None of the videos have yet shown complete 'levitation', they all have a corner on the surface. But still, not behavior that anyone has ever seen from lead before.

But couldn't it just be a magnet ? I don't understand how it's a proof. You can already do what is in the video (and even better), with for example, pyrolitic carbon ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrolytic_carbon

No, digmagnetic of levitation requires multiple magnets in a halbac array: https://www.kjmagnetics.com/blog.asp?p=diamagnetic-levitatio...

https://pubs.aip.org/aip/apm/article/9/10/101107/1061600/Pho...

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#745
post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Varies by field but last few years PRC been reaching parity to topping various science and innovation indexes, PRC institutions also breaking global top100 and general trend of moving up rankings. TLDR is PRC science exploded after mid 2010s - lag effect from academic reform in 00s. Biotech/bioeconomy a outlier though - just got elevated to strategic sector with 500b usd investment in last year's 5 year plan, so expe…

I’ll take what you are saying at face value, but point out that academic career pipelines are slow- it’s often about 15 years to go from college freshman to starting out as a “young” PI in the USA. If what you are saying is true, it will still be another 5+ years before we start seeing top students that stayed in China publishing as PIs. Edit: Which lines up with what you said at the top of your post.

That's a reasonable timeline. PRCs have been developing pharma/bio talent since 2015s. It’s part of medicine&devices category for MIC2025. Focus was on devices, pharma/bio got extra resource/political attention in the last few years due to covid. Like most PRC ventures it's going to be rocky/messy until it's not. Broad point is bio is one somewhat neglected up until covid sector that PRC wants to become a global player with industrial policies that has worked well to very well in other MIC2025 categories..

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Levitates? Against, what, the earth's inherent magnetic field? Sorry, I haven't seen any visuals that show this behavior.

Levitation in magnetic itself is not the proof. Frogs can do that too, ask Geim. The proof would be levitation in any orientation.

Only over an electromagnet, not a fixed one (to our knowledge). Digmagnetic levitation requires more than one magnet or an electromagnet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#747
post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Batteries that don't take any time to recharge Huh? Is this actually a thing that this enables? I don't initially see how

Nah, the GP is just completely out of reality. We won't see lossless transmission in a very long time, and no place where an aluminum cable is too expensive today will become viable because something a million times more expensive is 9% more efficient. Batteries won't see a revolution because of this, there's simply no reason for them to (but they are currently in a revolution, and there are more to come). AC storage…

They way I have described this is like the Wright brothers have just demonstrated the first power flight, and we are already planning the schedule for the A330's from LA to London.

It is exciting stuff but there is a very long way to go if true.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#748
post #19

I still have a very, very hard time understanding what all of this means. Is there an easy to understand explanation for a room temperature superconductor?

It's a conductor of electricity. But super good at it. i.e. - It has zero resistance to electricity. Currently, the best superconducting materials we can create have to be chilled to near absolute zero, which means designing them to work in liquid helium baths. This is expensive, and difficult. If a material can superconduct at room temperature, now we're talking usage in general purpose consumer goods. As for why we…

is this material cheap enough to make such a power line economically feasible

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#749
post #625
post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the things you listed are limited by the conductors in them. The efficiency of high voltage AC power lines is limited by capacitive coupling to ground. Battery charging is limited by the cell chemistry. CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Turns out metals (in particular copper) are already incredibly good conductors.

> CPU heat output is limited by the resistance of the semiconductors. Technically true but not applicable... Super conducting CPUs already exist (at below room temp), and they don't use semiconductors. They don't have an exact transistor equivalent but use digital logic circuits such as Quantum Flux Parametron (QFP) and rapid single flux quantum (RSFQ), which are comprised of Josephson Junctions [0] which are made fr…

It might be possible to create a new kind of transistor that turns on/off by changing the superconductivity of the conducting material.

Re: A room-temperature superconductor? New developments

#750

This is exciting, but I try to maintain my composure. Good luck to all involved. I didn’t know science could be such a thrilling spectator sport.

> This is exciting, but I try to maintain my composure. One wit on a different social media site opined that "all technological advances such as plumbing and petrol result in lead poisoning, so perhaps this is real".

He forgot about the 3rd P, perovskites (cheaper & more efficient solar cells)
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