3 ms·

I'm curious why there is so much focus on the magnetic levitation. Wouldn't the most important, and easiest test be to shunt a bunch of current through it and m

• rcxdude 3y ago
  It's not that straightforward if you have a bunch of samples which may only contain a small fraction of the material which isn't connected together. Firstly it becomes very difficult to probe a small grain that is hopefully pure and secondly you can't just dump an arbitrary amount of current through a superconductor, they only have zero resistance below a critical current level, and for LK-99 even if it was superconducting this was thought to be quite low, so a small sample means a very small voltage drop even for a normal conductor.
• Rebelgecko 3y ago
  No, my understanding is that the problems are 1. Connecting probes to samples the size of a grain of sand 2. Superconducts can only superconduct a finite amount of current. So if you use a bunch of current, you may go past this material's max. And if you use a smaller amount, the limiting factor is the accuracy of your equipment