3 ms·

I'm not too familiar with this space. Could someone explain how big of an impact to the world this discovery is? What does the future of this technology look li

I'm not too familiar with this space. Could someone explain how big of an impact to the world this discovery is? What does the future of this technology look like over the next 5 years?

jacquesm 3y ago
If true, five years not that much difference. A few decades, large differences.
- distortionfield 3y ago
  “People always overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten.” - someone much smarter than me.
wildzzz 3y ago
Superconductors have applications in computers, MRIs, maglev trains, and power transmission to name a few. Superconduction at room temp would all for less current consumption due to resistance inside the metal layer for chips, letting them run cooler and faster. MRIs use massive, supercooled magnets. If you can do the same at room temp, you could potentially have a portable or much smaller and more efficient MRI. If you can levitate an object, you can use a lot less power running electromagnets to run things like maglev trains. If you have power lines that have zero resistance, you can reduce wasted energy. Power lines will actually sag under heavy load due to heat and cause outages or forest fires, this could be avoided.
- unlikelymordant 3y ago
  Anything that uses an electric motor can use a smaller more efficient motor, id expect big changes in e.g. electric cars, but also probably things like robotic actuators getting smaller and more efficient. Also there are superconductor based batteries that are very efficient, would would become a thing, likely revolutionising batteries.
ecshafer 3y ago
I think with a solid verification of superconductivity at room temperature, we probably don't see anything in 5 years, just because the production is so hit or miss. But I do think we see massive investment and research on this line of materials and different production techniques. Going from Science to Engineering and making this a thing you have plant making. I think its a 10+ year thing but its big.
- moogly 3y ago
  Well... maybe. Or it could become like graphene.
overnight5349 3y ago
Hear me out: superconducting railgun for launching multi-ton payloads to supply a lunar colony without rockets
cthalupa 3y ago
Not an expert in the area, but being passingly familiar with other major advancements and the timelines it's taken them to move from discovery to day to day use. Let's say we got a massive wave of independent replication of superconductivity tomorrow - at least enough to convince Big Money to move in, and it all ends up being For Real. The next steps are figuring out the other properties of the material, with a big one being 'how ductile is it', how to produce it in large enough quantities to be useful, if the underlying mechanisms here can be applied to other compositions that allow us to make RTAPS with better properties, etc. Depending on those results determines the range of applications it is suitable for out of the box, how much we can make at what cost, etc. We've got minimal details to go on there. It's a ceramic, so it's probably not super ductile, but we have some experience in making those be useful via making them into a tape, a la YBCO. Can we do the same thing here? Who knows! There's a timeline where all of these questions end up favorable and 10 years from now we see RTAPS in all sorts of day to day applications - we might find out that with one small trick we end up with big pure samples of LK99 with easy production methods. There's a world where all these answers aren't favorable, and it takes 10 years for it to show up in specialized applications (which are still huge for science and humanity!), and trickles bit by bit to more use cases over another few decades. I would guess that a decade-ish is really the earliest window for significant impact to humanity - we're probably going to spend the next year at minimum figuring out what all the deal is with LK99, and then it'll take a few years to even really start making cool experimental stuff in labs, and then you have to actually productize things using it, etc.

I'm not too familiar with this space. Could someone explain how big of an impact to the world this discovery is? What does the future of this technology look like over the next 5 years?

jacquesm 3y ago

If true, five years not that much difference. A few decades, large differences.

distortionfield 3y ago
“People always overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten.” - someone much smarter than me.

wildzzz 3y ago

Superconductors have applications in computers, MRIs, maglev trains, and power transmission to name a few. Superconduction at room temp would all for less current consumption due to resistance inside the metal layer for chips, letting them run cooler and faster. MRIs use massive, supercooled magnets. If you can do the same at room temp, you could potentially have a portable or much smaller and more efficient MRI. If you can levitate an object, you can use a lot less power running electromagnets to run things like maglev trains. If you have power lines that have zero resistance, you can reduce wasted energy. Power lines will actually sag under heavy load due to heat and cause outages or forest fires, this could be avoided.

unlikelymordant 3y ago
Anything that uses an electric motor can use a smaller more efficient motor, id expect big changes in e.g. electric cars, but also probably things like robotic actuators getting smaller and more efficient. Also there are superconductor based batteries that are very efficient, would would become a thing, likely revolutionising batteries.

ecshafer 3y ago

I think with a solid verification of superconductivity at room temperature, we probably don't see anything in 5 years, just because the production is so hit or miss. But I do think we see massive investment and research on this line of materials and different production techniques. Going from Science to Engineering and making this a thing you have plant making. I think its a 10+ year thing but its big.

moogly 3y ago
Well... maybe. Or it could become like graphene.

overnight5349 3y ago

Hear me out: superconducting railgun for launching multi-ton payloads to supply a lunar colony without rockets

cthalupa 3y ago

Not an expert in the area, but being passingly familiar with other major advancements and the timelines it's taken them to move from discovery to day to day use. Let's say we got a massive wave of independent replication of superconductivity tomorrow - at least enough to convince Big Money to move in, and it all ends up being For Real. The next steps are figuring out the other properties of the material, with a big one being 'how ductile is it', how to produce it in large enough quantities to be useful, if the underlying mechanisms here can be applied to other compositions that allow us to make RTAPS with better properties, etc. Depending on those results determines the range of applications it is suitable for out of the box, how much we can make at what cost, etc. We've got minimal details to go on there. It's a ceramic, so it's probably not super ductile, but we have some experience in making those be useful via making them into a tape, a la YBCO. Can we do the same thing here? Who knows! There's a timeline where all of these questions end up favorable and 10 years from now we see RTAPS in all sorts of day to day applications - we might find out that with one small trick we end up with big pure samples of LK99 with easy production methods. There's a world where all these answers aren't favorable, and it takes 10 years for it to show up in specialized applications (which are still huge for science and humanity!), and trickles bit by bit to more use cases over another few decades. I would guess that a decade-ish is really the earliest window for significant impact to humanity - we're probably going to spend the next year at minimum figuring out what all the deal is with LK99, and then it'll take a few years to even really start making cool experimental stuff in labs, and then you have to actually productize things using it, etc.