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Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

arxiv.org

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Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#91

Post by zarzavat »

ajb117 wrote: post #55

I don't know much physics, but is there a reason we should be hoping for superconductivity specifically rather than a cheap material that's just a very very good conductor? Also, even if LK-99 were superconductive, that wouldn't imply it would be useful for computing, right? Surely there are materials that are better conductors than silicon but have mechanical and other physical quirks preventing us from using then f…

It would be unlikely for the first observed room temperature superconductor to also be practical. LK99 contains lead which is something we are trying remove from consumer electronics.

What matters is all the investment and attention that would follow the verified discovery of such a material, the huge glut of research would surely yield even better candidates.

The ideal end goal is something like the superconducting tape that we already have, but that works without cooling and is preferably non-toxic.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#92

Post by johndunne »

anonymous_sorry wrote: post #51
huijzer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) it takes a undergrad to make and measure a superconductor by a Nobel laureate to explain it. Another example of Taleb’s idea that experimentation comes first and theories second. Universities pretend that it’s the other way around but apart from an Einstein it’s usually not.

It's a feedback loop. Experimental results suggest new theories, which suggest new experiments to test those theories.

Well put. I'd add that theories can produce predictions, and if the predictions can be proved experimentally, all the better for the theory.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#93

Post by sanxiyn »

russdill wrote: post #89
sanxiyn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooler chips. Chips heat due to resistance, and superconductors have zero resistance (by definition). I suspect this is the company's intended application. The following quote from their patent is very suggestive if you know about semiconductor manufacturing. > In addition, various energy sources used for deposition are not limited to chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using heat, but atomic layer deposition (ALD), sput…

Superconductors don't make dynamic power somehow go to zero, switching from one state to another still means draining the capacitance.

Sure, I said cooler chips, not chips with no heat.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#94

Post by BlueTemplar »

joefigura wrote: post #3

I just wrote a comment in another thread that's relevant here too. It looks like the first superconductor paper was released by a rouge researcher, without the agreement of the other two authors or the rest of the LK-99 group. This forced the LK-99 group to rush to publish the official paper, with a cost to quality. The LK-99 group released v2 a week later (on Saturday), and probably will continue to update it. A pre…

They are only preprints anyway, it's not like they matter ?

No peer review, and it's not like the preprints are going to matter much compared to the lab evidence for claims of discovery ?

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#95

Post by barabba »

raj33krish wrote: post #65

This is why space exploration is important. If we could find some astroid having superconductor materials at room temperature, everything will be revolutioned here.

I strongly disagree with this view. We don’t even know if such material can exist, and the intersected odds of it 1) existing 2) naturally and 3) us stumbling into it in the short term are astronomically low.

Not saying space exploration is not important, but the reason you cite for it is about at the bottom of the list.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#98

Post by __alexs »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #69
ajb117 wrote: post #55

I don't know much physics, but is there a reason we should be hoping for superconductivity specifically rather than a cheap material that's just a very very good conductor? Also, even if LK-99 were superconductive, that wouldn't imply it would be useful for computing, right? Surely there are materials that are better conductors than silicon but have mechanical and other physical quirks preventing us from using then f…

Silicon is not valuable because it is a good conductor, in fact it is actually more like an insulator in its natural state. However, mixing the right materials into it, it becomes a very good semiconductor . So it can let current flow easily or block it effectively, making it a good basis for transistors. The problem here are the normal (usually copper) wires between transistors that cause heat to build up whenever c…

> The problem here are the normal (usually copper) wires between transistors that cause heat to build up whenever current flows through them.

IIRC with the high frequencies of modern processors switching losses tend to be a larger factor than resistive losses. If you can remove the resistive losses that leaves you with a greater heat budget from switching losses which might help drive up frequency even more.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#99

Post by joefigura »

chrisjj wrote: post #73
joefigura wrote: post #3

I just wrote a comment in another thread that's relevant here too. It looks like the first superconductor paper was released by a rouge researcher, without the agreement of the other two authors or the rest of the LK-99 group. This forced the LK-99 group to rush to publish the official paper, with a cost to quality. The LK-99 group released v2 a week later (on Saturday), and probably will continue to update it. A pre…

> It looks like the first superconductor paper was released by a rouge researcher, without the agreement of the other two authors or the rest of the LK-99 group Please do cite any evidence, beyond a mere accusation.

The evidence is all the weird bits about how the paper was published, and other internet comments about the third author's relationship to the group.

The authorship of the papers is relevant to the science here, since both papers have quality issues, so I wrote out the accusation as best I understood it. The evidence is nowhere near enough to prove anything and largely rumor right now, but I do think it's suggestive.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#100

Post by red75prime »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #42
brunooliv wrote: post #12

What are the implications in general of room temperature superconductors? I just know that they needed typically ultra low temperatures right? But what would be the practical implications?

Anything that uses electricity would use less electricity because you aren’t wasting it as heat. So in theory you could have a ridiculous computer that runs 1000GW of power through it without heating up. Or a flying car. Or power cables that lose nothing during travel. Naturally that’s why it doesn’t make sense. It’s too game-breaking to be possible in normal conditions. Glitching something out by making it basically…

> computer that runs 1000GW of power through it without heating up

It doesn't work like that. Non-reversible computations necessarily produce heat. The superconducting wires will not heat, but the CPU will.

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