This looks a lot less like diamagnetism than the previous videos, but is still using way larger magnets than they should need; still very sceptical.
Also a reminder to anybody reading a news article about this: LK99 is likely a ceramic, so the attributes specifically for metallic superconductors would not apply.
Assuming for a moment it is real and works and this class of material is useful for transmitting current with 0 resistance or making magnets, many attributes of other ceramic superconductors also shouldn’t apply given the theory that predicted it says it’s not one of those either.
This also leads to a very very stupid reactionary semantic argument you’ll start seeing more and more over the coming weeks.
I’m honestly more worried about science communicators projecting life-changing properties onto it because “superconductor”, and then the public coming away with “these scientists are all hyperbolic hacks”.
If anyone wants more context on what’s going on with this research, and the potential implications and limitations, I found this write up to be the most informative ones that I’ve come across:
Good article. I also posted an article from The Verge that mentioned a few other details including ease of manufacturing the material easily and cheaply to be effective if the research pans out and positively identifies K-99 as a true room temperature superconductor.
So all this is exciting, but everyone still needs to take the news with a grain of salt. Don’t get discouraged though, it’s a serious breakthrough if the material is truly replicated.
So, I’ve been standing aloof from all this till more experiments had turned out.
This paper’s synthesis makes no sense, you can’t have any kind of uniforms strained lattice that way, so it would have to be a bulk characteristic superconductors which we’ve never seen before, ie resistance is low and on certain crystalline paths becomes fairly superconductive.
Maybe this is a random fluke and once they actually understand the Mechanics they can make a real superconductors through effective fabrication processes, but if anything this reminds me of Shockley’s first point-contact transistor in structure.
I’m still trying to not get too excited but its getting difficult with all the new videos and replications. We’re getting close to real world hoverboards!
Obtaining usable energy at any hour of the day and in any weather for one thing. That will be less important as batteries or other grid scale systems improve, but for now it’s a big factor.
Total potential output per m^2 is another factor, especially in higher density areas
The amount of energy you can get per m^2 without heating the planet is definitionally the amount you can get by covering a small fraction of the planet with PV. No thermal power generation can beat this.
Large, inflexible, overly centralised generation is also unable to reach high grid penetration (for example france produces 20-30% of their load from dispatchable sources like gas and hydro even on a summer’s night during the pandemic where demand is <50% of their nuclear fleet’s nameplate capacity)
Fusion and compact magnetic imaging, we’d have a tricorder and a path to a: higher density magnetic storage, 2: possible magnetic fabrication, via precise layer deposition.
Evidence that the class of materials is a thing is decently solid so far (but will still take a few months to confirm).
The hard bit of finding a process or another material in the class with a yield of more than a couple of milligram specks per kg of input starts after that.
Plus even then, the anisotropy (it only works in one direction) will give it some odd limitations. Still really cool though
I think we’re going to see the claims on this material fully validated. I’ve seen enough evidence so far to suggest that the inconsistencies/ failures to replicate are due to the difficulties in production, not the material itself. And sure, those difficulties are well, difficult. But that’s really quite secondary to the discovery so long as it replicates. Those engineering questions will be solved in time.
It seems that room temperature superconduction is, well, a thing.
This material will probably never make a difference to the everyday person. The discovery that lead to this material will help produce better materials that will change our everyday lives.
The first lightbulb was well refined before being sold in large. Almost every major discovery affects few people. It’s the subsequent discoveries that affect our lives
Are you saying the lightbulb has only helped few people? Are you saying the lightbulb was not a major discovery?
The lightbulb changed the world and affected billions. The transistor changed the world and affected bullions. A room temperature superconductor likely will as well.
I meant more so that the first lightbulb didn’t. It had to go through changes and be refined to actually be usable. Maybe a lightbulb wasn’t the best example, but the concept is that the initial discovery is not usually impactful to most people but the inventions those discoveries lead to are whats important to the everyday person. The superconductor has multiple issues, and I doubt this material will find its way in anything in our lives. But if opens a new avenue of research which will lead to other materials which will find their ways into our lives.
So many potential advances. Could quantum computing become more easily accessible if thermal load is a non issue? Could renewable become more viable if they don't lose as much energy to travel?
Could its discovery propel high speed rail into the future?! Hoverboard?!
Except the top comment on the Hacknernews thread suggests otherwise.
Edit for reply that won’t post otherwise:
It is absolutely laughable to assume that Chinese researchers wouldn’t forge a discovery for financial gain. Millions, if not Billions, have flooded into companies who are even adjacent to cutting edge superconductor manufacturing in just this week since the first news broke of LK-99. They are putting themselves in the running for hundreds of millions of investment dollars. And if they so cared for the process they would submit to a proper peer review before attempting to post “proof” of anything on a TikTok-esque video platform.
This particular replication attempt appears to be Chinese, yes. But it makes no sense for Chinese researchers to be deliberately faking the replication of some unrelated Korean scientists' supposed fraud (which makes no sense to be fraud in the first place). What could they possibly gain from it aside from the ruination of their own reputations as well?
I could believe that LK-99 is not actually truly classically superconductive, but instead has a bunch of weird properties that suckered its creators into thinking it was. It seems unlikely but eh, maybe. Weird things pop out of the universe sometimes. But it's really implausible that this is all a deliberate fraud. If you're going to make fraudulent claims about inventing a new kind of superconductor the last thing you'd make up is something that anyone can make for themselves with a few basic ingredients and a pottery kiln. That ultra-high-pressure room temperature superconductor is the perfect counterpoint - it was so hard to replicate that it took ages to show it was fake.
This is a reproduction attempt by a Chinese team in China.
The original product was produced by a Korean team in Korea.
For this to be fraudulent both the Chinese and Korean teams would have to have made stuff up, and Korea scientists don’t have a history of lying. Why would they, make plenty of advanced tech all on their own legitimately.
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