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We have all grown up reading about how inventions were the sole genius of one person. Take the case of Edison's light bulb. Even he admitted he tried 10,000 var

We have all grown up reading about how inventions were the sole genius of one person. Take the case of Edison's light bulb. Even he admitted he tried 10,000 varieties before getting it right. And even his invention probably came of the back of many others before who probably did research for producing glass at an industrial scale, research into various materials and elements (which could be used for filaments) and so on so forth. It will be quite a while before we get super conductors produced reliably.Of course the prerequisite is that a true super conductor is really created, in a lab condition, is going to take quite some time.

agumonkey 4y ago
Electromagnetic control of liquid crystals is from 1927 (and original research on the chemistry/material side being from 1888) .. things did take a long time to evolve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9edericksz_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9edericksz_transition
danabrams 4y ago
The breakthrough of Edison in the case of the light bulb is less the filament (which he did try thousands of materials for) but the innovations: 1. He figured out that the filament wouldn’t immediately burn out in a vacuum 2. Built machinery to blow glass to the right shape and form the vacuum inside (so he figured out how to make the glass on an industrial scale) 3. Most importantly, figured out how to build a commercially viable system of power generation and distribution in Manhattan so his bulbs would be of use. Yes he worked incrementally. He also invented ways to manufacture and create markets for his novel inventions.
HansHamster 4y ago
> It will be quite a while before we get super conductors produced reliably.Of course the prerequisite is that a true super conductor is really created, in a lab condition, is going to take quite some time. We do have working super conductors produced at scale, some of which are just 'boring' alloys. The problem is that the cryogenics required for operation are expensive and complex, making them not very appealing for widespread use.

agumonkey 4y ago

Electromagnetic control of liquid crystals is from 1927 (and original research on the chemistry/material side being from 1888) .. things did take a long time to evolve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9edericksz_transition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9edericksz_transition

danabrams 4y ago

The breakthrough of Edison in the case of the light bulb is less the filament (which he did try thousands of materials for) but the innovations: 1. He figured out that the filament wouldn’t immediately burn out in a vacuum 2. Built machinery to blow glass to the right shape and form the vacuum inside (so he figured out how to make the glass on an industrial scale) 3. Most importantly, figured out how to build a commercially viable system of power generation and distribution in Manhattan so his bulbs would be of use. Yes he worked incrementally. He also invented ways to manufacture and create markets for his novel inventions.

HansHamster 4y ago

> It will be quite a while before we get super conductors produced reliably.Of course the prerequisite is that a true super conductor is really created, in a lab condition, is going to take quite some time. We do have working super conductors produced at scale, some of which are just 'boring' alloys. The problem is that the cryogenics required for operation are expensive and complex, making them not very appealing for widespread use.