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

arxiv.org

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

#91
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…

It would be good for countries to put a bounty on these sorts of things. That would encourage this sort of research.

Better yet would be to offer partial payouts for failed efforts if research is made public.

This is probably more relevant for pharmaceuticals though.

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

#92
So far lab replication efforts are:

Two from HUST: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14p4y1V7kS/ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13k4y1G7i1/

One by USTC https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ex4y1X7ix/ this tiny sample can stand on its pointy side.

One by Qufu Normal University https://www.zhihu.com/zvideo/1669820225079070720

One with THU background but claims a personal project https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14z4y1s7Vo

Why are't more labs outside China making LK-99 and publish videos?

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

#94

Why are folks trying to prove that this material is a superconductor in roundabout ways, like levitation, dimagnetism, etc? What is the reason they don't just test to see if electrical current flows without resistance? Surely there is something I am missing here.

How would you prove there isn't any water in a cup?

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

#95

It’s a breath of fresh air reading about actual revolutionary science happening. The deluge of news about non-replicable results, fabricated data, overhyped press releases from both academia and industry had become really depressing. For once after a long time it’s the real deal. Even if this is not a RT superconductor, it’s now evident that the original authors didn’t cheat and are not crackpots as initially suspect…

You know, most of that stuff you hear about are bad takes on science. Science has moved into the realm of trying to understand complex systems with a lot of noise and with unknown variables. There will be a lot of misses; but that is how sausage gets made.

Exactly, it's like sifting a mountain of ore looking for diamonds. The original Korean team has essentially been doing a slightly guided brute force search in a domain that they thought was promising doing 100's or even 1000's of experiments. It's a clever approach: you have a real problem because the parameter space is so large but if you get 'close enough' to pick up an anomaly that might help you home in on something that is really promising. I'd love to see their notebooks and everything they tried. This is pretty much how we first got electric light: endless failures and then one success.

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

#96
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, that's weird. They missed all the other noble metals besides silver too. No platinum, rhodium... those things have really really interesting orbital structures, I'm surprised they're worth leaving out of something so tricky when it might be important. Strange.

The only thing I can think of is that they did it and know that those noble metals don't work very well, and so they're getting everyone else to follow a wild goose chase down a very expensive rabbit hole while they already have a better approach.

... but the tech doesn't look that developed. Very strange.

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

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes just think of the joy of living between 1903 (Wright brothers) and 1943.

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

#98

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…

>can watch a catalog of almost all the movies ever made on demand tonight.

You must have one hell of a different streaming services experience from that of most people today if you can pull this off without engaging in a fair bit of torrenting and general piracy.

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

#99

i wonder if this will become the next version of hopium, where we struggle to refine a material that can actually be used in a wide enough temperature range to operate outside.

The initial paper claimed superconductivity up until 400 K (127 °C or 260 °F), so I think if that's the case it would be able to withstand outdoor conditions just fine

Indeed, operating temperature seems to me less of a concern. Considering how difficult it‘s been to produce LK-99 so far, some skepticism on being able to manufacture the material in mass is warranted, I think. Still, exciting! I’m hopeful :)

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

#100

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…

It's exactly like we got one critical item in the tech tree of humanity taken care of.
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