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credibility of LK99 claims is very very high. What are the medium term practical implications for all these potential applications?
by chaimanmeow 3y ago
credibility of LK99 claims is very very high. What are the medium term practical implications for all these potential applications?
- distortionfield 3y agoIt seems more and more like it's credible, but that synthesis is going to prove to be the issue. All these repro attempts are having too much success for there to be nothing behind the team's claims.
- monkeynotes 3y agoCan you explain why -160c is a measure of success when the claim was room temperature? A super conductor functioning at -160c would make MRIs simpler, but it's not world changing.
- BasedAnon 3y agobecause it's a very unexpected result, it shouldn't be levitating at room temperature and the random drop in resistance at certain temperatures doesn't make sense
- floxy 3y agoDoes anyone know what S.R. Hadden has been up to lately? A new high-temperature superconductor seems like the perfect cover story for a fraud scheme around room temperature superconductors.
- ianburrell 3y agoI don't think -160C would change much since it would still need cryogenic cooling. Liquid nitrogen is the most common and cheapest cryogenic. YBCO is liquid nitrogen cooled and has the advantage that can make in large quantities and has high field strengths. But if it was slightly warmer, over -153C, then it could use non-cryogenic refrigerants.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 3y agoCredible? Their claim was “room-temperature superconductivity.”
- meepmorp 3y agoIt looks like they've at least discovered a novel high temperature (relatively speaking), low pressure superconductor. That does lend some credibility to the original claim, and perhaps reproduction of the result is trickier than originally thought.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 3y agoThere’s a Grand Canyon sized chasm between creating a “low pressure superconductor” and creating a room-temperature superconductor and, unfortunately, Evel Knievel wasn’t a co-author.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ianburrell 3y agoWe also don't know its critical field strength. The original measurement from Korea was low. That could improve as they improve synthesis, but could be problem with the material. There are lots of high temperature superconductors that aren't useful; YBCO is important because of high field strength and liquid nitrogen coooling. I'm sure there are lots of uses for low current room-temperature superconductor. But powerful magnets and long-distance power transmission require large currents and big magnetic fields.
- meindnoch 3y agoStart shorting power companies.
- 1attice 3y agoupvoted for the latent pun
- NickM 3y agoHypothetically, if we did end up with a worldwide superconducting energy grid, this would smooth load, which I would expect would make generation cheaper (since we can get rid of the need for expensive peaker plants and/or stationary storage requirements to handle local demand spikes). This would therefore make power companies more profitable, no?
- ceejayoz 3y agoProbably depends on the power company. The ones with a lot of coal plans would suffer; the ones with a bunch of solar/wind farms in prime locations that can dramatically expand capacity (think things like giant solar farms in the Australian outback) would benefit.
- hadlock 3y agoHVDC and HVAC transmission lines already only see single digit transmission losses over hundreds of miles This has bigger implications in reducing wiring (and weight) costs in things like electric vehicles. Instead of fat finger diameter 20' copper cables, you could replace them with tooth floss.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> HVDC and HVAC transmission lines already only see single digit transmission losses over hundreds of miles Quite a bit of the world is thousands of miles from sunlight at any particular time. Being able to power Northern Europe off solar farms in the Sahara has the potential to fix a number of challenges with green energy.
- Night_Thastus 3y agoWhat do you mean? If it's only a superconductor below 110K, that's not nearly as significant.
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, that's what one team now says: that they have observed super conductivity and that this happens at a much lower temperature than the one claimed by the other team. But it is at ambient pressure and more importantly there are already multiple confirmations of the Meissner effect at room temperature. Besides that this experiment shows some really weird stuff happening at higher temperatures that needs to be explained. So this race is far from run yet.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 3y agoWhat confirmations?
- ralfd 3y agoVery informal "leaked" confirmations, but that is the current state: https://twitter.com/elsa17z/status/1686763798294593536?s=20 https://twitter.com/elsa17z/status/1686763798294593536?s=20
- BasedAnon 3y agoincreased geopolitical tension
- jacquesm 3y agoThat is an interesting observation and puts words to some thoughts that I've had: if it turns out that this is 'the real thing' and the patent holds up South Korea is suddenly a superpower.
- mjh2539 3y agoThat doesn't follow at all. Lead and copper aren't exclusive to South Korea. The authors get prestige and the owners of whatever patents are granted get some money.
- jacquesm 3y agoOf course they aren't. But patent owners get to set the terms under which their patents are licensed. It's not like the record business where there is a fixed deal and if you use someone's lyrics you know up front what it is going to cost you. Someone might not even want to do business with you at all...
- consilient 3y ago> But patent owners get to set the terms under which their patents are licensed To private entities, sure. The US government can and will force you to grant them a license if necessary.
- jacquesm 3y agoYes, except that's the US government and the inventors here are in South Korea. I don't think the US would get away with declaring 'eminent domain' over something invented in a different country. They could choose to simply not honor the patent but that will open a massive can of worms, especially because a lot of this stuff depends on reciprocity: if your government doesn't honor our key patents, why should we do the reverse?
- ReptileMan 3y ago0 applications out of the door but huge leap for material science. And some of the best and brightest people will look for something deep there.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]