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Global Room-Temperature Superconductivity in Graphite
- tmikaeld 3y agoHere we go again Hopefully this time it can be confirmed
- Tadpole9181 3y agoFor what it's worth, LK-99 adjacent research is still happening[0]. [0](https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00999 https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00999).
- tmikaeld 3y agoIt's probably an important thread to follow in any case
- kikokikokiko 3y agoIt's the boy who cried room temperature superconductivity effect. If we in fact live in a simulation I can clearly see that when someone in fact achieves RTSC, nobody will believe it at first. It's the most movie like turn of events, just as a good simulation writer would like to see.
- sfn42 3y agoBelieve is something religious people do. The great thing about science is belief is unnecessary. If someone makes a fantastic claim it is reasonable to be skeptical. Skepticism is not an obstacle when you can prove that your claim is true.
- aspenmayer 3y agoThe proof in the pudding is in the tasting.
- itishappy 3y ago> Believe is something religious people do. The great thing about science is belief is unnecessary. Unfortunately, we are not all equipped to replicate all experiments, so even scientists rely on a significant amount of belief and faith.
- sfn42 3y agoNo. We do rely on trust. I'm not saying everyone needs to replicate all experiments. This is trivial. If this superconductor is real then people will replicate it. People will publish results and once we have multiple independent verifications we can trust that it's real. If it is also practically applicable then it will start to be used in real appliances and when we see it working we know it's real. Science is frequently wrong. False positives, fabricated results etc are published on a daily basis. We should not accept one study's results as fact, we should not blindly believe in it, that's not how science works. We should understand that there are degrees of trust and certainty. A qualitative study is highly unreliable, a quantitative study's reliability depends on specific details such as sample size, methodology etc. All a study says is "we did this and saw these results". We don't know that it isn't fabricated, we don't know that the description is accurate, we have to take it with a grain of salt. But at some point we have enough data to trust claims like "this medication is effective at treating this illness" or "this material is superconductive at room temperature".
- itishappy 3y agoRight, but that trust comes from somewhere. I don't check the credentials of the authors on every paper I read, nor demand professors show me all effect experimentally. We rely on our networks to assign trust appropriately, but often we don't even verify that! We're forced to take so much at each others word that the system may as well be predicated on our faith in humanity. You can see this go wrong as well, people who've lost a little faith start doubting more and more experimental evidence, particularly that which falls outside of their beliefs. I don't mean the system's broken in any way, far from it, this is a healthy functional system of scientific discovery! I just think it's fascinating how much is predicated on good faith.
- eynsham 3y agoBelief is something nearly everybody does, religious or not: when I go downstairs to make some tea, I act thus believing that there is tea downstairs; when I reason by modus ponens, I do so believing therein; and when a scientist uses a theorem in a derivation, they will often believe that the result is going to be at least approximately correct in some sense to be specified thereof. Beliefs of course vary in the level of justification (a) that can be supplied (b) that actually is present.
- boxed 3y agoNo one should believe it at first. That's how we get progress. If everyone believes fantastic claims too fast, we will just have frauds and mistakes everywhere.
- appplication 3y agoSee: merits of blockchain
- boxed 3y agoThat made zero sense
- Tadpole9181 3y agoBuilding on previously reported local superconductivity in graphite, have provided much explanation to why this occurs, has been in review for over a year, no signs of trying to sell a product, and provides guidance for further material research... > In the present work, we report the first unambiguous experimental evidence for the global zero-resistance state, RTSC, in the scotch-tape cleaved highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) that possesses dense arrays of nearly parallel line defects (LD), the wrinkles... > The basic principle we have uncovered is that linear defects in stacked materials host strong strain gradient fluctuations, which induce the local pairing of electrons into condensate droplets that form JJA-like structures in the planes. Very neat!
- qup 3y agoCare to translate it? It's a wall of lingo for me.
- adrian_b 3y agoFor now, this is very interesting, but it still does not exist any obvious path for using this effect in a practical device. Because superconductivity is not a property of the normal structure of graphite, but it appears when a certain configuration of defects is formed by breaking the graphite, I assume that it is difficult to obtain twice the same properties. Moreover, because superconductivity appears in a fragile crystal, it could not be used for flexible cables, but only for rigid PCBs or inside integrated circuits. Because the superconductivity is on the surface of the crystal, not in its volume, it will not be able to carry high currents. Nevertheless, it is likely that after some years the reproducibility problems could be overcome. Neither superconducting graphite nor lead apatite appear promising for high-power applications, but one of them or a similar material could lead to significant improvements in integrated circuits and PCBs.
- Tadpole9181 3y agoThis research seems predominantly focused on explaining the actual mechanism by which RTSC can be achieved, and a demonstration of it. Understanding the "why" is the best part, as it allows us to begin intentionally designing ways to force these wrinkle impurities onto not only this material, but others. Compared to modern chip manufacturing processes, cleaving and stacking pyrolitic graphite in a controlled way seems quite doable. I'd like to be optimistic, at least!
- vsnf 3y agoWhat is "global" in this context? I assume it means throughout the entire material sample, as opposed to some small section of it?
- mplewis9z 3y agoYep - best explanation is from the introduction: > Various experimental groups have also reported localized superconductivity in graphite at temperatures as high as 300 K. [...] However, so far, all the efforts to achieve a global superconductivity at elevated temperatures in graphite failed.
- mdorazio 3y agoFor those coming to the comments first, this is at standard pressure as well.
- sph 3y agoDoes standard pressure mean "sea level", or does it have its own special meaning like "high-temperature superconductor" to indicate "works above -200C"?
- Tadpole9181 3y ago1 atm tested up to 300K (26.5C / 80F).
- bongripper 3y ago[dead]
- fennecfoxy 3y agoI mean AI is helping to discover new molecules, predicting protein folds, etc. Pretty sure it must already be being used to discover new materials as well, hopefully we can throw this sort of thing at it today/in the near future, too. Humanity as the seed of an idea/initial research and AI as the army of low-level "researchers" running billions of experiments/analysis; stuff that would take way too many human-years/would be boring as hell for a human to do.