[HN Gopher] How close are we to the holy grail of room-temperatu...
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How close are we to the holy grail of room-temperature
superconductors?
Author : Anon84
Score : 74 points
Date : 2023-04-15 21:16 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.forbes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.forbes.com)
| 1bent wrote:
| My favourite exploration of the potential novel applications of
| room temperature superconductors is Larry Niven's Ringworld.
| bblpeter wrote:
| If you see a headline like this you know we're not close at all
| 4RealFreedom wrote:
| https://archive.ph/7LVAW
| ggm wrote:
| It's like a corollary of Beveridge's law of headlines: if it's
| about a scientific discovery around the corner and mentions
| fusion.. it's a long way round the corner.
| bawolff wrote:
| The article doesn't mention fusion even once.
|
| Byt yes, major science breakthroughs don't happen in a day or
| even a year, or 10.
| anonylizard wrote:
| The definition of breakthroughs is that nothing happens for
| 10 years, and then suddenly everything happens and is
| possible.
|
| AI was wandering in the wilderness just like fusion, a theory
| without results or practicality. But first alexnet in 2012,
| then transformers in 2017, and we are now at the stage where
| "AI is moving too fast and we must pause it!!!"
|
| Who knows, maybe the alexnet of superconductors is lurking
| somewhere.
| sublinear wrote:
| > we are now at the stage where "AI is moving too fast and
| we must pause it!!!"
|
| I disagree. The problem isn't the technology, but that for
| once we have something that demands more deliberate use.
| LLMs directly confront the literacy gap between the most
| and least educated members of the public, and I really do
| mean that in all senses of the word "literacy".
| jacquesm wrote:
| They take a long time to set up and then they can happen
| quite quickly but they are usually incremental and tend move
| the needle only bit-by-bit as we go forward _in spite_ of
| being a revolutionary science breakthrough.
|
| Take flight as an example. People had been experimenting with
| it probably since the first human saw a bird and wanted to be
| able to do that. That went exactly nowhere until someone
| built a kite large enough to support the weight of a (light)
| human. And since then every few hundred years there was some
| kind of 'breakthrough', each of which building on probably
| hundreds or even thousands of failures in the intermediate.
| Until finally the Wright Brothers made their first powered
| flight and then we were off to the races. If not for all
| those failures and all of those baby steps the revolution
| wouldn't have happened when it did. The Wrights had a number
| of pre-requisite inventions at their disposal and as much as
| theirs was the true breakthrough without those other
| inventions they'd be sitting on a beach playing in the sand.
|
| It's layer upon layer of failure, the occasional step of real
| and measurable progress and even rarer a real breakthrough.
| mhb wrote:
| Just like how Hemingway went bankrupt.
| canadianfella wrote:
| [dead]
| anshumankmr wrote:
| We have all grown up reading about how inventions were the
| sole genius of one person. Take the case of Edison's light
| bulb. Even he admitted he tried 10,000 varieties before
| getting it right. And even his invention probably came of the
| back of many others before who probably did research for
| producing glass at an industrial scale, research into various
| materials and elements (which could be used for filaments)
| and so on so forth.
|
| It will be quite a while before we get super conductors
| produced reliably.Of course the prerequisite is that a true
| super conductor is really created, in a lab condition, is
| going to take quite some time.
| HansHamster wrote:
| > It will be quite a while before we get super conductors
| produced reliably.Of course the prerequisite is that a true
| super conductor is really created, in a lab condition, is
| going to take quite some time.
|
| We do have working super conductors produced at scale, some
| of which are just 'boring' alloys. The problem is that the
| cryogenics required for operation are expensive and
| complex, making them not very appealing for widespread use.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Electromagnetic control of liquid crystals is from 1927
| (and original research on the chemistry/material side being
| from 1888) .. things did take a long time to evolve.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9edericksz_transition
| danabrams wrote:
| The breakthrough of Edison in the case of the light bulb is
| less the filament (which he did try thousands of materials
| for) but the innovations: 1. He figured out that the
| filament wouldn't immediately burn out in a vacuum 2. Built
| machinery to blow glass to the right shape and form the
| vacuum inside (so he figured out how to make the glass on
| an industrial scale) 3. Most importantly, figured out how
| to build a commercially viable system of power generation
| and distribution in Manhattan so his bulbs would be of use.
|
| Yes he worked incrementally. He also invented ways to
| manufacture and create markets for his novel inventions.
| nextaccountic wrote:
| > Byt yes, major science breakthroughs don't happen in a day
| or even a year, or 10.
|
| Sometimes they happen in a day. But major engineering
| breakthroughs, now that's hard, because you have to build the
| thing.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| There's a sort of bermuda triangle of notorious physics
| vaporware that's been 20 years into the future ever since
| they were first conceived.
|
| * (useful) Fusion
|
| * Room Temperature Superconductors
|
| * (useful) Quantum Computers
|
| There's always breakthroughs but nothing seems to ever come
| out of it. Will they ever happen? Maybe. That said I've got a
| degree in theoretical physics and I'd bet against all three
| within my lifetime.
| Retr0id wrote:
| Don't forget next-gen battery chemistries!
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Ubiquitous (and dynmamic) holography.
| mecsred wrote:
| I want to preface this: I'm not trying to be snide,
| genuinely curious. What kind of person gets a degree in
| "theoretical physics", something that is by definition
| speculative, if they also bet against any of the
| speculation panning out?
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Theoretical physics isn't speculative physics, but
| physics focusing on mathematical modelling rather than
| experimentation.
| mhb wrote:
| The kind of person who plants a tree?
| HPsquared wrote:
| Major science breakthroughs in a given field also aren't
| guaranteed to even happen.
| janmarsal wrote:
| I've been trained like a Pavlov's dog to ignore any news
| article with the word "may" in the title as it allows
| journalists to write about any kind of bogus that may or may
| not be true. Makes me wonder how many innocent, truthful and
| insightful articles I've ignored because of this.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Likewise. Especially for: solar power, wind power, nuclear
| fusion, super conductivity, battery technology, cures for
| cancer. If a had one $ for every article that I saw over the
| years that didn't pan out I'd be able to retire instantly.
| tonmoy wrote:
| Solar, wind, battery and cures for cancer had significant
| incremental improvement for the last 20 or so years. What
| kind of claims wrt to these technologies don't you think
| panned out?
| jacquesm wrote:
| The key is incremental. The problem is that every news
| article about any of that stuff invariably hails things
| as 'may be revolutionary' and they never are. But I'm
| perfectly happy with the incremental stuff. I just can't
| stand the way the news gets hyped.
| diffuse_l wrote:
| You may have missed a few.
|
| But it generally seems like a good idea, similar to headlines
| ending with a question mark.
| hoelle wrote:
| Asking gpt4 about computational methods and superconductors:
| https://pastebin.com/Cy5sAtL3
|
| Cool that AI will help us take this leap. Symbiosis!
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| Does any of its answers actually make sense though?
| hoelle wrote:
| Um, yes. It gave me a handful of good leads for related open
| source projects to check out. Why the negativity?
| vxNsr wrote:
| Because generative AI isn't creating new ideas, it's just
| remixing existing ideas. This is exactly the type of thing
| AI is useless for.
| hoelle wrote:
| I don't need AI to "generate" new ideas. Here I'm using
| it as a search to point me to things I can research.
|
| Why the negativity?
| nullc wrote:
| If you define "creating new ideas" widely enough to make
| your statement true about generative AI it's also true
| about most engineering and science carried out by humans.
| drowsspa wrote:
| Pretty sure the people studying in this field already know how
| to google papers.
| hoelle wrote:
| Sure, as an outsider curious about getting involved, a high
| level summary is exactly what LLMs are good at.
|
| Why the negativity?
| drowsspa wrote:
| > Cool that AI will help us take this leap
|
| Because in this specific instance it isn't doing anything
| to help us take this leap.
| hoelle wrote:
| Right, and a hammer is not a saw. Different tools do
| different things.
|
| In this example the llm helped point me to a few relevant
| tools in the field, including
| https://materialsproject.org/ml, which is a different AI
| tool that might help us take this leap.
| drowsspa wrote:
| I feel like I'm the one talking to an AI.
| hoelle wrote:
| I could ask ChatGPT why you're likely to be a grumpy bad-
| faith asshole, but as an expert in the field of dealing
| with children, you probably just need a snack.
| drowsspa wrote:
| Why the negativity?
| FpUser wrote:
| I remember some discussions about room temp superconductivity
| being "just around the corner" and I think it was at the very end
| of 80s.
| tetris11 wrote:
| The Temperature by Year graph of the compounds was nice, but I'd
| like to see Temperature by Pressure graph for some of these
| codethief wrote:
| The graph does mention the pressure, though, even if it's not a
| separate axis.
| chriskanan wrote:
| Note that the 2020 Nature paper they mention was retracted:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2801-z
| fnord77 wrote:
| um, never since it violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics
| gus_massa wrote:
| As far as I know, there are no theoretical reasons against room
| temperature and pressure superconductors. There is no
| theoretical barrier between liquid nitrogen temperature (where
| we have many superconductors at normal pressure) and room
| temperature (were we don't have, IIRC here are a few that are
| (not very) close, but require a high high high pressure).
| orwin wrote:
| I know the response is 'not close at all', but even a -50deg
| lightly pressurized (less than 10 atmosphere let's say) semi
| would do wonder for on-site energy storage, fusion. Anything
| twice as good as what I described and our world change again.
|
| It's a better silver bullet than fusion (and would unlock fusion
| too).
| Sharlin wrote:
| Anything not-super-exotic, preferably not-brittle that only
| needs nitrogen boiling point temps (and yeah, a reasonable
| pressure) would be a big deal. Currently known high-temp SCs
| tend to be difficult to make practical things out of.
| jvandonsel wrote:
| This is a surprisingly well-written science article for a
| business magazine. It helps that a physicist wrote it.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Indeed, I didn't expect to learn some physics in Fortune.
|
| Hm, he has a blog [0], but it's on Medium.
|
| [0] https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang
| lovemenot wrote:
| >> In a world of finite energy resources, the elimination of any
| inefficiencies can benefit everyone: energy providers,
| distributors, and consumers at all levels
|
| Furthermore, a super-conducting belt around the Earth would
| greatly mitigate solar and wind energy's Achilles heel;
| intermittency.
|
| Renewable power, generated elsewhere, could become accessible in
| the calm of a windless night. Grid storage? Thanks, no need.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Consider a superconducting belt laid under the oceans, carrying
| a large fraction of civilization's power needs.
|
| Consider what would happen if the technology failed, and it
| suddenly transitioned to normal conduction.
|
| Sounds like a great SF story, even if the actual effect is
| minimal. (I haven't done the back of the envelope calculation
| :)
| Gud wrote:
| Presumably the relay protection would trip the breaker for
| over current. Essentially they would function like HVDC
| cables, and we already operate plenty of those.
| nullc wrote:
| > generated elsewhere,
|
| Why generated elsewhere?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energ...
| contravariant wrote:
| For a moment I thought you were saying it would mitigate solar
| wind. Which it won't, far from it.
| dsq wrote:
| For a non physicist, what in room temp superconductors would be
| the holy grail? That is, what would open up that is currently off
| limits?
|
| Is it "only" better transport of electricity, or would completely
| new things become possible?
| aqme28 wrote:
| Fusion power would basically be solved.
| dsq wrote:
| That's interesting. I didn't know that whether fusion power
| would be available depends on room temperature
| superconductors. Is there a simple explanation for that?
| ilyt wrote:
| Not as much "off limits" but "horribly expensive because of
| cooling requirements"
| [deleted]
| dermesser wrote:
| MRIs or anything with very high magnetic field requirements
| become a lot easier to build once you don't need to cool them
| down as much. Inversely, Generators etc. would benefit.
|
| Magnetic levitation (Meissner-Ochsenfeld) would also not
| require such low temperatures.
|
| Even Quantum computing using superconducting qubits might
| become easier (although there, superconductivity is not the
| main reason for low temperatures).
|
| "Only" better conductivity is a big deal, after all.
| dsq wrote:
| What form would magnetic levitation take? Could we have
| silently cars, floating houses, flameless rockets, etc?
| willbudd wrote:
| Along the same line of thought, but flywheel energy storage
| would become quite appealing when the rotating mass can
| maintain stable levitation without any energy input (in the
| form of electromagnets or refrigeration as needed today).
| wolfram74 wrote:
| better electric motors in general, they can be smaller when
| they have less waste heat to worry about, and higher
| torques. The navy was playing around with miniaturization
| of vessel motors more than a decade ago[0] but I haven't
| run into how that projects gone in the intervening years.
|
| [0]https://www.powermag.com/superconductor-motor-for-navy-
| passe...
| Turskarama wrote:
| Flywheels main problem is already just energy density,
| they're more similar to a capacitor than a battery. There
| are situations where they would certainly be better, but as
| it is for the situations where they are useful I don't
| think the very low rate of power loss the best ones
| currently have is that big a deal.
| analog31 wrote:
| Just a note that even if falling short of room temperature,
| liquid nitrogen (77 K) is a lot cheaper and easier to work with
| than helium, and is not a scarce resource. A lot of useful
| technologies would open up if we get past the 77 K threshold,
| at manageable pressure.
| nullc wrote:
| huh? we have LN2 temperature superconductors. In this clip I
| show flux pinning in YBCO, cooled by LN2 on my dining room
| table: http://nt4tn.net/random/superconductor.mp4
|
| There are many limits in current HTS-- like it's hard to
| build coils out of brittle ceramics-- so having alternatives
| would be very useful, so perhaps that's what you meant?
| analog31 wrote:
| Yes. Practical magnets. But still, I'll check out your link
| at intermission. ;-)
| nullc wrote:
| I wonder how much RTS research could be expected to
| produce better materials for making electromagnets.
|
| Even Niobium-tin only gets there via clever manufacturing
| techniques (e.g. the internal-tin process; https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/Niobium%E2%80%93tin#Niobium_ti... ).
|
| Is ductile HTS a major research target too, or even
| believed to be possible? Or is the hope that by studying
| RTS' we'll stumble into something that can be
| manufactured by chance or gain some deeper understanding
| of their behavior that let us design more useful
| materials? It seems the media spills the most ink on room
| temp but I agree than LN2 temp but able to be formed
| would be more important-- I think if YBCO worked at -70C
| it still would not see that much commercial use.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| No expert by any means, but SQUIDs[1] rely on superconductivity
| to detect tiny magnetic fields. One use is for recording neuron
| activity[2], so perhaps room-temperature superconductors could
| allow for a portable setup.
|
| This article[3] goes into some of the advantages of a less
| restrictive setup, but the laser-pumped sensors they rely on
| still require a lot of additional hardware.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQUID
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoencephalography
|
| [3]: https://hebergement.universite-paris-
| saclay.fr/supraconducti...
| Etheryte wrote:
| Maglev trains might change from prohibitively expensive to
| reasonably affordable.
| codethief wrote:
| We'd finally have laptops that don't overheat (well, not heat
| at all) and are not constrained by thermal limits! Imagine
| putting a desktop CPU into your laptop! (Battery lifetime
| issues aside)
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| No heat means no power usage (unless we also find a way
| around the laws of thermodynamics), so no superconductors
| aren't going to make your laptop magically not heat up. It
| could help a bit with power lines going to transistors, but
| to do actual computions we need to consume power and thus
| generate heat.
| Turskarama wrote:
| Not so fast, just because something becomes available doesn't
| mean it will be immediately used for everything it _could_ be
| used for. Cost remains a factor.
|
| I very much doubt room temperature superconductors would ever
| be used in consumer electronics. They probably wouldn't even
| be widely used in data centers outside of truly cutting edge
| "no expense spared" systems.
| timonoko wrote:
| Example: You could install solar panels to Sahara and Australia
| and enjoy all-yea-round 24h solar energy in Germany.
| oreally wrote:
| The article mentions resistance. Things are needed to overcome
| resistance, and that introduces wear and tear. Magnetic
| levitation would likely alleviate those problems.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| One application could be to join up the world's electricity
| grids, though I suspect that our land-mass politics could well
| be a barrier to that. It could smooth the supply/demand
| requirements between the dayside and the nightside of the
| earth.
|
| It could likely be done with ordinary cables, but the power
| loss would be significant.
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