5 ms·

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 10

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 maximum cold makes sense because you’re making it fully still so that it stops messing with the current. Glitching something out by squeezing it until it can’t move makes sense. Leaving it in a normal room means it would have to be something completely crazy.

throwaway69123 3y ago
It makes about as much sense than a computer in your pocket that’s not even plugged in being many orders of magnitude better than a computer that takes up an entire room and can barely do on operation a second
- karmasimida 3y ago
  Battery is just one thing that stands in the way to make our phone more powerful, even totally remove the battery, it still takes up quite some space.
red75prime 3y ago
> 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.
- valine 3y ago
  The thermodynamic limits of computation are so far below what we have today it would be a game changer to approach them.
magicalhippo 3y ago
> So in theory you could have a ridiculous computer that runs 1000GW of power through it without heating up. I touched on this in a previous thread[1], but superconductors only stay superconducting below not just a critical temperature, but also below a critical current density and critical magnetic field strength. These limits are different for different superconductors. It could very well be this superconductor has really high critical temperature but really low critical current density, in which case you can't have lots of current at zero resistance. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36931619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36931619
superluserdo 3y ago
>So in theory you could have a ridiculous computer that runs 1000GW of power through it without heating up. That doesn't make sense. Power has to be consumed by something. All energy ends up as heat, so if the computer isn't heating up then the power consumption is 0W, not 1000GW. >Or a flying car. A flying car with superconducting motors would still have to expend the energy to stay aloft by pushing air downwards. Even without thermal losses to electrical resistance, you'd still have losses to friction from the moving components.

throwaway69123 3y ago

It makes about as much sense than a computer in your pocket that’s not even plugged in being many orders of magnitude better than a computer that takes up an entire room and can barely do on operation a second

karmasimida 3y ago
Battery is just one thing that stands in the way to make our phone more powerful, even totally remove the battery, it still takes up quite some space.

red75prime 3y ago

> 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.

valine 3y ago
The thermodynamic limits of computation are so far below what we have today it would be a game changer to approach them.

magicalhippo 3y ago

> So in theory you could have a ridiculous computer that runs 1000GW of power through it without heating up. I touched on this in a previous thread[1], but superconductors only stay superconducting below not just a critical temperature, but also below a critical current density and critical magnetic field strength. These limits are different for different superconductors. It could very well be this superconductor has really high critical temperature but really low critical current density, in which case you can't have lots of current at zero resistance. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36931619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36931619

superluserdo 3y ago

>So in theory you could have a ridiculous computer that runs 1000GW of power through it without heating up. That doesn't make sense. Power has to be consumed by something. All energy ends up as heat, so if the computer isn't heating up then the power consumption is 0W, not 1000GW. >Or a flying car. A flying car with superconducting motors would still have to expend the energy to stay aloft by pushing air downwards. Even without thermal losses to electrical resistance, you'd still have losses to friction from the moving components.