[HN Gopher] Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity...
___________________________________________________________________
Room temperature, ambient pressure superconductivity - this time
for real?
Author : mutant_glofish
Score : 263 points
Date : 2023-07-27 14:59 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (scanalyst.fourmilab.ch)
(TXT) w3m dump (scanalyst.fourmilab.ch)
| escot wrote:
| +1 for use of the term "Diamond Anvil Cell"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_anvil_cell
| dang wrote:
| The major threads so far:
|
| _Superconductor news: What's claimed, and how strong the
| evidence seems to be_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36881808 - July 2023 (434
| comments)
|
| _The first room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36864624 - July 2023 (858
| comments)
| fredsmith219 wrote:
| Have Pons and Fleischmann confirmed the results yet?
| RyanAdamas wrote:
| What if the team itself did create LK-99 that is a
| superconductor, but they aren't able to reproduce it and only
| have the sample left that works. Hence, they aren't able to make
| more of it to prove their success, but rather decided to release
| the paper and method so that others can try to reproduce it.
| Given the amount of interest, they could put hundreds of labs to
| work trying to recreate what they themselves can't, hoping
| someone will find what they found and have an actual process for
| doing so?
|
| Is that even possible?
| [deleted]
| alangibson wrote:
| They would just say that in the paper. The effect would be the
| same: half the labs in the world falling over themselves to
| reproduce first.
| RyanAdamas wrote:
| Ok, but if they said as much why then would people shift
| resources to try and 'rediscover' something that may take
| years? Not saying it, means people will pursue the
| fabrication more readily.
|
| I heard your point nonetheless. It was just a question I
| asked in the larger thread and wanted more input. Thanks.
| inasio wrote:
| I think it's unlikely in this case. They seem to have gone out
| of their way to show a method that can achieve replication
| using very common materials and pretty much medieval-grade
| technology (except for the vacuum pump, maybe).
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| In theory, you could produce this in the medieval era if you
| had mercury.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprengel_pump
|
| Just imagine some society discovering superconductivity on
| the cusp of even starting a technological revolution.
| RyanAdamas wrote:
| Ok, if that's the case, why the imperfect demonstration? Why
| not dozens and dozens of videos showing such a monumental
| success in action? The lack of clear evidence, especially
| with social media frenzies, is a red flag in my opinion.
| WithinReason wrote:
| It looks like they rushed to publish, trying to get their
| name out first.
| ChemSpider wrote:
| My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard "high
| temperature" YBCO superconductor material just _slightly_
| modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically
| new, like a new chemistry.
|
| How likely is it that all the other 1000s of labs doing research
| on this topic just missed this lucky combination of baking,
| cooling and whatnot?
| peyton wrote:
| Kim seems to credit the fact that he's a chemist, not a
| physicist.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It's not a standard matrix and what do you mean by no new
| chemistry?
| ChemSpider wrote:
| To create such a dramatic increase in critical temperature, I
| would expect you need a dramatic change in chemistry (as in:
| formula, materials,...) as well.
| kadoban wrote:
| I mean it's not even the same basic elements. How much more
| of a dramatic change were you thinking?
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Well, last time I had some hope for room temperature
| superconductors that was with doped fullerenes (C60 and
| friends). That was a truly novel approach.
| jansan wrote:
| Even if it is very unlikely, they still may have missed it.
| Let's be patient, we will soon know more, give them two more
| weeks.
| airgapstopgap wrote:
| No, there's no YB and they propose an entirely novel mechanism
| for how generic metals (a whole host of possible combinations)
| can achieve superconductivity in these conditions. At least
| check out the formula or open the link.
|
| > modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure
|
| > The superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute
| structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %),
| not by external factors such as temperature and pressure. The
| shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+ (2) ions in
| the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the
| stress.
|
| > Pb10(PO4)6O
|
| It's just Lead, Phosphorus and Oxygen all the way.
|
| (That said I don't believe it works)
| ChemSpider wrote:
| For me, that is what I would call "just bake something
| together", the YBCO way.
|
| That said, I see now that I should have made this point
| clearer. See below for my comment with C60. That was a truly
| different approach (that failed).
| pengaru wrote:
| > My issue here is: This new material is essentially standard
| "high temperature" YBCO superconductor material just slightly
| modified, or? The authors are not doing anything dramatically
| new, like a new chemistry.
|
| There is no Pb in YBCO, what are you on about?
| ChemSpider wrote:
| That is what I would call a slightly modified approach. They
| just "bake something together" and hope to get lucky. No way.
|
| Anyway, I am not an expert. I hope they have a win here, but
| hard to believe at this point.
| pengaru wrote:
| AIUI The only thing in common is they both contain copper.
|
| Not an expert either, and extremely skeptical myself. The
| poor videos claiming to demonstrate levitation just seemed
| to show diamagnetism and eddy current reactions.
| gene-h wrote:
| The space of possible combinations of just three different
| elements of the periodic table is huge. This is before you get
| into added dimensions of processing, ratios of each element to
| the others, different possible crystal structures, etc.
| mrbonner wrote:
| I'm a noob when it comes to SC. Sorry to ask this question here
| and hope someone could explain. I can't get any answer from
| Google. What is the excitement around seeing floating magnets? My
| understanding is that we can have 2 regular magnets float if
| position them in opposite polarity, right?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Levitation demonstrates the superconductivity, but that's not
| all it's useful for.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_applications_of_...
| iefbr14 wrote:
| I think they use a shard of the end of an ferrite loopstick
| antenna to fake the so called levitation. With some help, as
| seen in the video, it will orient itself in the field lines of
| the magnet.
| golergka wrote:
| Basically, all of the electronical devices humanity uses, from
| nuclear power plants to smart watches, are about to get
| efficiency improvements in double digits. This is trillions of
| dollars per year, and a couple of degrees in average Earth
| temperature.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| Unfortunately, this is not even close to correct. Resistive
| losses in wires are not the only cause of wasted energy, and
| in most battery-powered devices they aren't very important at
| all. How is a superconductor supposed to help with e.g.
| switching losses in a buck converter, or reduce the amount of
| energy stored in a transistor's gate capacitance?
| jacquesm wrote:
| > How is a superconductor supposed to help with e.g.
| switching losses in a buck converter
|
| That one I can answer for you: because it would reduce the
| time to go from 'on' to 'off' due to the much more rapid
| flow on account of reduced resistance. The currents in a
| buck converter can be very high because they are short, but
| that is also exactly where you'll find the losses: in the
| transition from 'off' to 'on' and vice versa. So this won't
| do anything for the MOSFET losses but it could seriously
| shrink inductor losses and those are the other major
| factor.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| Sure, the inductor conduction losses would go away (and
| that's a substantial improvement!), but I'm not sure what
| you're talking about with regard to reducing switching
| time. I don't think the MOSFET gate drive is limited by
| the wire that connects to it.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It isn't but the capacitor that is sitting on the far end
| of that circuit _is_ limited by how fast you can pump
| current in or out. And if your current can go up
| considerably then the capacitor will charge that much
| faster and so your losses will be smaller because for the
| same 'on' duration of the MOSFET you can move more
| charge. Clearer now?
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| With the regular magnets, you'd have to hold them in places,
| since otherwise they'd rotate in place and fall back down,
| attracted to each other.
| mhb wrote:
| No. It is impossible for an ordinary magnet to float freely
| over any number of other stationary ordinary magnets.
| phoenixstrike wrote:
| I am going to attempt to address the common nitpicks in one fell
| swoop:
|
| 1. Rushed publication, plot quality, grammar, etc. Get over
| yourselves. This is a pre-print for an instant-Nobel, next-tier-
| of-civilization level discovery. The proper publication will come
| in due time. Waiting for a more complete verification is a
| sheltered view. Being first matters. Things changed after the
| J/Psi discovery in 1974. For those that don't know, Sam Ting
| discovered it first, yet sat on it for months waiting for a
| complete verification. Then Richter's group also discovered it
| months later and Ting was forced to publish at the same time and
| share the Nobel. This changed the publication attitude in the
| field significantly. Being first matters.
|
| 2. "Terrible science." Again, get over yourselves. Just because
| the preprint doesn't match your taste specifically doesn't mean
| it's bad science. You can't satisfy everyone- there will ALWAYS
| be someone who complains about some missing measurement or plot
| they view as essential. Most of the time, the 'missing' component
| is directly related to their own work. In other words, people
| want to see what they understandd as being important to them,
| also reflected in other publications. That does not mean it's a
| valid criticism. It's nitpicking.
|
| The most realistic timeline is 2-3 months for a positive
| verification. 6 months for a negative verification. If it works,
| it will be quicker because a positive reproduction needs less
| work. A negative verification needs to be more thorough and will
| take more time.
| saberdancer wrote:
| I completely agree. I see many people commenting that the
| document has bad grammar or charts, completely ignoring that
| they probably authored it in Korean. Also looks like Kwan and
| HT Kim are fighting who gets to be 3rd Nobel winner so any
| problems with quality of the layout are easily explained by
| this.
|
| One thing that is a green flag in my opinion is that apparently
| they had a sample for a long time (year+) so I find it unlikely
| they made an obvious measuring mistake.
|
| But as always, most would love to have this be true and
| sometimes this gets better of us.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| If it's real, the paper could be written in crayon on a strip
| club napkin.
|
| Hoping it's real... but it doesn't seem like the substance is
| anything nearly exotic enough. Isn't this somehow supposed to
| be unobtanium?
| lamontcg wrote:
| > 2. "Terrible science." Again, get over yourselves. Just
| because the preprint doesn't match your taste specifically
| doesn't mean it's bad science. You can't satisfy everyone-
| there will ALWAYS be someone who complains about some missing
| measurement or plot they view as essential. Most of the time,
| the 'missing' component is directly related to their own work.
| In other words, people want to see what they understandd as
| being important to them, also reflected in other publications.
| That does not mean it's a valid criticism. It's nitpicking.
|
| Not knowing the precise Tc for the material isn't nitpicking
| that is pretty basic ("above 400C" isn't a very precise
| measurement). Questioning if their graph showing the Meissner
| effect isn't really showing the Meissner effect isn't really
| some obscure criteria.
|
| Bet we get results a whole lot quicker than that as well.
| raziel2701 wrote:
| Their PPMS is limited to 400K. There's nothing they can do
| about that. So yes, it is a nitpicking. I've used the same
| instrument, that's the max temperature quantum design allows
| without forking over more money. It matters to get the
| results out there and be first.
| alangibson wrote:
| Pretty much agree on criticisms of sloppiness. First off this
| is a preprint. More importantly, rushing to put a stake in the
| ground is reasonable in this case. if they are right 'instant
| Nobel' is just the half of it. The authors are guaranteed a
| place in the scientific pantheon.
| bloopernova wrote:
| What do you think the chances are of it being a
| measurement/instruments error?
|
| Edited to add: I am not a physicist. I don't know the
| subtleties of measuring experiments, and it was not my
| intention to state that there _was_ a measurement error. I just
| wanted to ask someone for their assessment of the chances it
| was an error.
|
| It's a little depressing that people are so quick to assume the
| worst of others, but I get why. The online flamewars fought
| over every announcement of this type would definitely put
| people on guard. Heck, on the UAP thread yesterday I
| immediately leapt to snarking about extraordinary announcements
| being bogus and I feel bad that I probably attacked it for no
| reason other than to feel cool:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36886221
| alangibson wrote:
| IANAS, but science Twitter seems to think 1) authors aren't
| clowns but 2) there's a non-zero chance they've
| misinterpreted non-SC effects because 3) there's missing or
| inconsistent data that would conclusively prove SC
| phoenixstrike wrote:
| Small. Imperfect contact, unplugged terminals, etc. These are
| not 1st year grad students who don't know what they are
| doing. The authors have decades of research and fabrication
| experience, and publications to back it up. Comments that
| insinuate it could be those kind of novice mistakes (other
| comments on HN/reddit, not yours) are frankly insulting and
| speaks to a profound arrogance in being unable to accept a
| new discovery.
| saberdancer wrote:
| Plus apparently they worked on it for several years, you
| don't have a terminal unplugged for a year.
| foven wrote:
| Compared to recent controversial results claiming the exact
| same thing (actually, more restrictive than this claim),
| it's not insulting it is what you should expect. The recent
| situation with Dias this year[1] is now under investigation
| as a case of data fabrication and he didn't even claim to
| have ambient pressure.
|
| Frankly there are too many details missing to trust them.
| They've fabricated a thin film but not characterized it. It
| is well known that the properties of a material change when
| you go from bulk to thin film with a big dependence on the
| thickness. They don't mention how the resistance of this
| thin film is measured - that's important for what artifacts
| you might expect to see in your measurements (van der Pauw
| vs Hall bar measurements are the standard but they don't
| mention using either). Without characterizing the thin film
| it's also difficult to know, chemically and structurally,
| what you are measuring. I don't see any data confirming the
| quality of the thin film. The way the data is presented is
| such that it can be misleading, showing I-V curves instead
| of resistance when you are really trying to say the
| resistance is what is changing. The first paper doesn't
| even mention the insulator-metal transition that is present
| in the second paper which is bizarre - this is important if
| you are also claiming a superconductor transition close by
| and you would expect some discussion of this behaviour.
|
| All of these are things that, one would hope, will be
| picked up by the reviewers as low hanging fruit before even
| really delving into the detail of the theory they present.
|
| Decades of experience alone should not be trusted. Anyone
| can make a mistake, and not all the authors can be present
| for every experiment.
|
| [1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02401-2
| bloopernova wrote:
| I apologize if I came across as insinuating it was an
| error, I was just asking you for your assessment of the
| chances it could be an error.
|
| I'm not well versed in the subtleties of physics experiment
| measurement, so I figured I'd ask. It's difficult for a
| layperson to determine which "side" is right when battle
| lines are drawn after these types of announcements.
| phoenixstrike wrote:
| I know, I did not think for a moment that you were making
| such an accusation. I was referring to the other comments
| on HN/reddit over the past week making those accusations.
| Sorry if my comment came off that way.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Oh! Sorry again for my overreaction :D Absolutely no
| problem, I'm glad it was cleared up.
|
| Ah well, at least we weren't attacking each other. Thank
| you for the original comment that was informative, I
| learned something from reading it.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Agreed. Skepticism is not only necessary but welcomed. But
| some of the comments are painting these guys like they are
| clowns. A bit of digging shows they've been working on this
| in some part since 1999 and that they were able to secure
| funding a few years back. And since then they've brought on
| other highly credible people and have in fact have been
| able to build this material awhile now.
|
| This isn't some grad students that just stumbled upon
| something they mistook for something else. There's a really
| good chance this is legit and that lots of physics will
| need to be looked at.
| febed wrote:
| A source (German) attributed to the Max Planck Institute for
| Solid State Research thinks the paper is bogus [0]
|
| [0] https://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9a3f8740
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Appreciate whatever this dude is trying to say in their blog,
| but judging by his writing style and overall presence and
| demeanor, he doesn't really want to be listened to, does he?
| saberdancer wrote:
| Pretty sure I read this comment somewhere else (not attributed
| to Max Planck Institute), I think it was a guy on reddit.
|
| Maybe they are the same but could be just copy paste from
| Reddit.
| minutillo wrote:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/159jojs/scienti.
| ..
| Exuma wrote:
| https://twitter.com/8teapi/status/1684571913908293633
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Q: Das Layout sieht Scheisse aus! A: Jo, das ist das
| historische Default-Layout.
|
| solid.
| l33t233372 wrote:
| My German is poor. Does this say:
|
| Q: The layout is very shitty!
|
| A: No, it's the historically default layout.
| schnuri wrote:
| Jo translates more to Yes or Yeah
| Tepix wrote:
| No, it says:
|
| A: Yes, that's the historic default layout
| omnibrain wrote:
| "Jo" is "yupp"
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks! I've casually studied German, but I'd never come
| across "Jo".
|
| "Jo" kind of reminds me of Dutch vs. German, where many
| corresponding words are just slightly different.
| ccppurcell wrote:
| Jo (pronounced a bit like your without the r sound) is
| affirmative in lots of European languages, including
| Finnish and Czech (it's spelled joo in Finnish iirc)
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Interesting. In colloquial (American?) English, "yo" is
| used to get someone's attention, or to you've heard
| someone asking if you're present.
|
| E.g., "Yo! Doofenschmirtz! You're new inator has been
| delivered."
|
| Or: "Is Phineas here?" "Yo!"
| tigershark wrote:
| He didn't even try to explain the levitating video displaying
| the Meissner effect..
| meepmorp wrote:
| There are non-superconducting materials that exhibit
| diamagnetism, too.
| carabiner wrote:
| In a week there will be a lot of thinkpieces on how the
| internet got this so wrong. A lot of people just want to
| believe, full of hope, because their life situations (poverty,
| housing crisis, hot weather) are so dire.
| dang wrote:
| As far as HN's discussion goes, I'd say the community has
| been getting it right. The conversation has been curious and
| substantive, everyone knows it's probably not true, but most
| are not making shallow dismissals. There's a shared sense of
| waiting for the replications to succeed or fail, and in the
| meantime, discussion of the details as well as what the
| impact would be if it does turn out. Also driving interest is
| that the claims are said to be easy to replicate if true, so
| the answer is expected any time now. Imminence fuels
| anticipation--like waiting for election results.
|
| The shallow dismissal reaction is taking for granted that
| it's not real and everyone's wrong to give it a chance. The
| thing is, almost everything is wrong--you can rely on this
| completely, and by placing your bet on "wrong wrong wrong",
| you achieve a high batting average--you'll be right almost
| all the time. The trouble is that your expected value will be
| zero, and you will be both bored and boring (I don't mean you
| personally--this is a common pattern and we all do it to some
| extent).
|
| It's in the low-probability/high-impact quadrant that the
| interesting things reside, alongside crank material and
| dross, and it's not easy to tell them apart. That's natural.
| But one thing we can be sure of is that rejecting everything
| in that quadrant is a sure way to fail in the long run, and
| probably also to keep oneself in a bad mood.
| TillE wrote:
| This really nicely echoes a response to Eliezer Yudkowsky
| that I saw: if you always just play the odds on stuff like
| this, you're gonna be wrong about the real breakthroughs,
| which by definition defy the odds.
|
| There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical, but I remain
| hopeful. All the theoretical critiques are extra
| interesting if this is real and the data is basically
| accurate.
| mustacheemperor wrote:
| I thought wow, what a substantive, insightful comment on
| HN, I need to save this one. And then I saw you wrote it!
| Glad you're the one running our madhouse, thank you.
| SamPatt wrote:
| Dang, Dang. Well said.
|
| I enjoy HN most in times like this.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| What would the internet have gotten "wrong"? It's a paper and
| now people will try to replicate it. Some informed people
| give their take on why it sounds right and/or wrong, but
| ultimately they aren't (and can't) verify or debunk it yet
| pending further investigations. I have zero expertise to give
| an opinion either way, and honestly the impact of room
| temperature/pressure superconductors just doesn't seem that
| overwhelming. Maybe more maglev trains?
|
| As with many things now, there are that small set of people
| who need to pick a "position" early and then stake a part of
| their ego on it. Which is super weird and destructive, and
| underlies many of the bad tendencies of the web.
| carabiner wrote:
| This story deserves no more attention than the 10,000 crank
| papers submitted to Arxiv every day about time travel,
| prime numbers, antigravity. There is nothing worth
| replicating. That's what they got wrong.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Except one of the authors on the good paper is a
| professor at a legit research university with thousands
| of citations.
| carabiner wrote:
| Just like Avi Loeb, the Harvard astrophysicist claiming
| he's about to find ET. Or the MIT profs a few years ago
| who thought they could be billionaires with a naive bayes
| algo for trading bitcoin. Guess what they're doing now?
| Hint: still have dayjobs.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| It depends on the quench current, but yeah, maglev,
| hoverboards, much cheaper MRI machines, less reliance on
| the diminishing helium reserves, lower cost experimental
| fusion reactors and particle accelerators too. That last
| could lead to progress speeding up in that research as more
| people can try stuff. Lower cost for power transmission
| would make renewables that are geographically limited more
| usable. Also coil and rail guns would probably
| proliferate... If the quench current is high enough you
| could see handguns that charge on usb-c and are not legally
| firearms in any nation I'm aware of. Quite a disruptor.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I haven't seen this get much play outside of HN and... those
| are not the problems facing most HN commentators
| carabiner wrote:
| I should say that even if it doesn't affect them
| personally, it creates their worldview when it is 90% of
| their news. Homeless crisis, war in Ukraine. Why wouldn't
| you want and allow some positive, apolitical, hopeful story
| about noble science to consume your attention instead?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Pushing this higher up, this is the first real expert
| commentary I have seen.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| Interesting that _the video of levitation_ isn 't mentioned at
| all in this rebuttal.
|
| Assuming the scientists acted in good faith and this isn't a
| complete scam, maybe we found _something else_ that doesn 't
| conform to our current understanding of superconductors, but
| _does_ levitate over a magnetic field at ambient temp
| /pressure.
| trgern wrote:
| The video of "levitation" is one of the things that makes me,
| a complete ignoramus of the subject matter, skeptical.
|
| https://sciencecast.org/casts/suc384jly50n
|
| All other instances of "quantum levitation" that I have seen
| has a "locked in" effect:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA .
|
| Whereas the material in this video seems to bounce and warble
| in a way that appears to me more akin to standard static or
| magnetic repulsion.
|
| Hope I'm wrong.
| tux3 wrote:
| One response to the levitation video is that it is hard to
| distinguish from a non-superconductive diamagnetic effect,
| which can occur even in not very exotic materials.
|
| There are videos of graphite levitating that are circulating,
| for example.
| tigershark wrote:
| Not true. The graphite needs two magnets, not one like in
| the video.
| yk wrote:
| For context, Fefe is a rather famous German hacker and his blog
| serves as rumor mill for German nerds. So on one hand I
| wouldn't trust it that much, on the other hand it is precisely
| where I would expect knowledgeable people ranting about a bad
| paper anonymously. (And what they are saying sounds like the
| type of thing domain experts would pay attention to.)
| jeepers6 wrote:
| [flagged]
| ChemSpider wrote:
| Anonymous or not, the "MPI guy" explains why he came to
| this conclusion, and it sounds legit.
| Zetice wrote:
| I feel like you anonymously and uncredibly (no offense
| intended) saying "sounds legit" kind of ignores the
| problem being pointed out here...
| sergiotapia wrote:
| "It should look like this" - until these guys made a scientific
| discovery and now it looks like this other different never
| before seen graph. This is hardly a proper rebuttal, expert
| opinion or not. We need these gents to try to replicate the
| results and then chime in. Otherwise it's just some dudes
| opinion. At one point the Earth was considered the center of
| our solar system.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| There is really nothing new reported on the site. They seem to
| cite a lot of HN comments from previous posts.
| jansan wrote:
| Doesn't matter, we need a new thread because if there are too
| many comments things on HN become unusable. Or is there a way
| to sort by most recent comments that I am not aware of?
| amelius wrote:
| So much for lead-free electronics.
| bradhoffman wrote:
| Can someone explain why this is a big deal? The author cites that
| it doesn't need an explanation, but I definitely need one lol.
| giarc wrote:
| I asked a similar question and got the answer that we could
| technically put a ton of solar panels in the Sahara and use
| this new material to transmit that power to anywhere in the
| world (without losing any power). Currently you couldn't do
| that since transmission lines lose power over distance.
| overnight5349 wrote:
| Portable MRI would be a huge deal. We'd also see
| superconducting motors in electric vehicles, along with marked
| efficiency gains in every part of EV systems.
|
| We could have a superconducting power grid with solar panels
| distributed across the planet. Superconducting batteries could
| give us grid level storage. It also reduces the cost of
| hypothetical fusion reactors, their magnets can be cooled with
| unpressurized water instead of liquid helium.
|
| Calling this the most revolutionary discovery of the last
| hundred years isn't an overstatement. This will affect almost
| every industry and in ways that we can't even imagine yet. If
| this material is what they claim, it's going to be a new era
| for our species.
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| There are all sorts of neat things that you _can_ do with
| superconductors now (toroidal inductor batteries, basically
| anything that would benefit from super strong coils like motors
| and magnets, novel electronics...) with the caveat that they
| are hilariously expensive to fabricate, and need a hilariously
| expensive cryogenic system built around them.
|
| The cherry on top is that the materials and fabrication for
| this material seem relatively cheap.
| phyrex wrote:
| You could look at any of the other threads where that has been
| discussed to death
| caturopath wrote:
| Could make cheap MRI and maglev trains, high-density
| electronics, quantum computers, fusion power, and many other
| potential applications.
| reneberlin wrote:
| Unfortunately it's not the hoverboard from BTTF that i was
| looking for. :)
| misnome wrote:
| Conduct electricity with zero resistance. This has been
| possible at cryogenic temperatures (powers supermagnets, MRI
| etc) but running at room temperature _and pressure_ means in
| theory that you don't need expensive support machinery. Has
| been the holy grail for the field.
|
| If true, this specific case is only low current, but
| demonstrates such a thing is possible - almost certainly
| winning an instant Nobel Prize.
| zackees wrote:
| Also, the clock speed of CPUs are limited by resistance and
| heat.
|
| Both of those go to zero. We may see 100ghz CPUs and 3D
| stacked cpus with almost no need for cooling.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| At those frequencies, induction would be a huge headache.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| Wouldn't you still get heat from current switching back and
| forth and transistors changing polarity?
| 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
| Does this mean there would be no heat waste? And devices like
| phones and computers wouldn't get hot?
| atq2119 wrote:
| There's the rather non-trivial problem of actually
| manufacturing chips with the superconducting material.
|
| But if that can be solved, then yes, it could make
| computing way more efficient.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Computers would still get hot, because the main cause of
| heat is not resistance in wires, it's that when a
| transistor switches with charge in the gate, you need to
| dump that charge, and when you do this it turns to heat.
|
| They would get less hot, because there are plenty of
| transmission losses too.
| guerrilla wrote:
| People were arguing about this earlier (some claimimg the
| opposite) but I didn't see a conclusion. Do you have an
| external citation handy?
| calf wrote:
| Where was the argument, may I see it?
|
| I vaguely remember switching current and leakage current
| as sources of heat, but mircoelectronic circuits has been
| a while for me...
| scarmig wrote:
| I believe they're referring to this comment thread I
| started:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36881808&p=2#3688454
| 2
| hatsunearu wrote:
| I was one of the people who said power is wasted in
| wires.
|
| When the charged stored inside a chip needs to change
| (like go from high to low), that energy associated with
| the charge needs to go somewhere. Currently most of the
| charge is dissipated in the wire and some of it within
| the transistor.
|
| If the wires have no resistance, the transistor will be
| the one dissipating the energy, not the energy simply
| disappears.
|
| So technically both options are right, but my position is
| the "technically right, but practically wrong" position
| lol
|
| That said if the interconnects are less resistive, the
| switching process becomes more efficient and less power
| will be wasted than the bare minimum required.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Ahh right. I didn't think of that. Thank you for
| explaining.
| dougmwne wrote:
| Citation: thermodynamics.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle
| guerrilla wrote:
| I get it now. Thanks.
| EvgeniyZh wrote:
| We are very far from Landauer limit tho
| zparky wrote:
| Correct
| alangibson wrote:
| Yes, among many other things.
|
| There's many vast amounts of electricity wasted due to
| transmission losses. Magnets for fusion plants would become
| much cheaper.
| _joel wrote:
| and faster
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| It is my understanding that computers would still need to
| somehow dissipate energy when they perform irreversible
| computations, and that will turn into heat. E.g. when you
| compute the AND of two bits, then the result is only one
| bit and you have to dispose of the remaining bit either as
| heat or as a garbage output signal.
| scarmig wrote:
| That's a thermodynamic limit, but we're not even close to
| hitting that yet.
|
| RTP superconductors still aren't going to magically make
| computers emit zero heat, though; there are other sources
| besides resistive losses. I was under the impression that
| other factors dominated, though a couple people responded
| yesterday to tell me that resistance is the primary
| source of heat. Not an expert in that area, would love
| for someone who does chipset design to clarify.
| briffle wrote:
| One of the biggest use cases (for superconductors that meet
| their requirements) would be long distance power
| transmission, where as much as 30% of the power is lost
| over long distances.
|
| Essentially, (and very top level) you could produce 30%
| more power, without adding any more production capactity.
| aqme28 wrote:
| People like to list technologies it would improve, like power
| transmission or MRIs, but I think it will be hard to predict
| what technologies are completely enabled by this, such as
| potentially fusion or quantum computing or things I don't even
| know about yet.
| [deleted]
| jacknews wrote:
| "this may spark a revolution in electronics as significant as the
| invention of the transistor, vacuum tube, and induction motor."
|
| How, exactly?
| retrac wrote:
| Superconductors are in the name. They're ideal conductors. As a
| corollary, superconductors coiled into a wire, shaped like an
| inductor, are also ideal inductors. By ideal, I informally mean
| nearly perfect in a mathematical sense.
|
| A thin superconductor can carry an almost arbitrary amount of
| electricity with 0% loss. This is a real-world application
| already for superconductors, but it requires cooling the entire
| conductor to liquid helium temperature. (It's not truly
| limitless - enough current will eventually break down the
| superconducting effect - but ten billion watts down a 1 mm
| thick wire is doable.)
|
| Similarly, an inductor made out of a superconductor, that is
| looped back on itself, can hold a magnetic field indefinitely,
| with 0% loss. Energy storage.
|
| Also, novel ways of manipulating magnetic fields, and as a
| consequence of that, novel ways of manipulating radiation that
| interacts with magnetic fields. Really, anything that needs a
| strong magnetic field could benefit. Maglev trains. Portable
| MRI scanners would exist today, if the electromagnet didn't
| need to be submerged in liquid helium.
|
| Superconducting computer circuits would dissipate no heat other
| than for the work required to physically change the state of
| the transistors. Power consumption could decrease by several
| orders of magnitude. Though to be honest, one day printing
| room-temperature superconductors lithographically is a rather
| unlikely prospect. But one can hope.
|
| And some proposed realizations of quantum computing would
| benefit from small, extremely powerful magnets, while other
| proposed methods exploit the properties of superconductors
| directly (Josephson effect).
| rcpt wrote:
| Portable MRI is sort of possible now
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0811222106
| gameshot911 wrote:
| > Similarly, an inductor made out of a superconductor, that
| is looped back on itself, can hold a magnetic field
| indefinitely, with 0% loss. Energy storage.
|
| Could this be used to make a bomb?
|
| If the new material really is as easy to manufacture as it
| seems, could homegrown terrorists easily create WMDs?
| [deleted]
| civilitty wrote:
| Yes they can be used to make a multistage electromagnetic
| pulse device but room temperature superconductors wouldn't
| really make it that much easier. Definitely not easy enough
| for a non-state actor to make one.
|
| The amount of current generated during the first stage of
| an EMP detonation is so high it ablates the coil away,
| which wouldn't happen with superconducting wires. However,
| it wouldn't protect it against the explosive used to
| generate the magnetic field, which is the biggest
| challenge.
| zardo wrote:
| > A thin superconductor can carry an almost arbitrary amount
| of electricity with 0% loss.
|
| A picture is worth a thousand words here.
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=superconductor+critical+surface&t=.
| ..
|
| Superconductors operate within the bounds of their critical
| surface. The max current depends on the temperature and field
| density, it's never arbitrary.
| petesergeant wrote:
| > an inductor made out of a superconductor, that is looped
| back on itself, can hold a magnetic field indefinitely, with
| 0% loss. Energy storage.
|
| In a way that could be used to power a car?
| orwin wrote:
| I'm afraid not, the magnetic field might be a bit too
| strong.
|
| But for local/grid storage, it's perfect. Also, infinite
| magnets, this might allow for less neodymium in renewable.
| And probably dozen new applications we don't think of yet.
|
| I said 3 years ago on this website that the only techno
| silver bullet I believed in against climate change was
| room-temperature superconductors, as this would help
| tremendously on
|
| - interconnections,
|
| - energy storage,
|
| - efficiency,
|
| And obviously help with plasma research, that would then
| help with both fusion and space catapult.
|
| I was disappointed way too much by tech news in the last 10
| years, but if this is true, I'd be really happy.
| tomatotomato37 wrote:
| > I'm afraid not, the magnetic field might be a bit too
| strong.
|
| I was always curious about that. The ability to hold
| extreme electrical currents means superconductors also
| produce extreme magnetic fields, which I presume will
| happily induce induction currents in whatever conductive
| material is nearby. If that material is non-
| superconductive, than it will start sapping the
| electromagnetic energy from said superconductor as the
| eddy currents get resisted, getting hot in the process.
|
| What I guess I'm saying is that I'm not sure how you're
| supposed to build a superconductive grid or motor without
| also turning everything around it into an induction stove
| when you turn it on.
| retrac wrote:
| > than it will start sapping the electromagnetic energy
| from said superconductor
|
| Electromagnetic induction involves the inductor, too.
| With a conventional electromagnet in a changing field,
| there is a current (an opposite current, in a sense)
| induced in the electromagnet's winding which is how the
| energy transfer occurs. The coil's apparent resistance
| increases as it moves through the field. But
| superconductors have no resistance :)
|
| Since a superconductor rejects induction from outside
| magnetic fields (Meissner effect) they do not inductively
| couple in the same way. Once energized and then looped, a
| superconducting magnet behaves more like a permanent
| magnet.
|
| With regard to use in power storage, strong magnets of
| any kind are rather inconvenient (even dangerous) around
| anything magnetic.
| retrac wrote:
| Conceivably, though the power density of superconducting
| energy storage is very low and will likely remain low. It
| is currently used at grid-scale to smooth out power spikes,
| since they can charge/discharge their full capacity almost
| instantly.
|
| > SMES is also used in utility applications. In northern
| Wisconsin, a string of distributed SMES units were deployed
| to enhance stability of a transmission loop. The
| transmission line is subject to large, sudden load changes
| due to the operation of a paper mill, with the potential
| for uncontrolled fluctuations and voltage collapse.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_ener
| g...
| civilitty wrote:
| _> power density of superconducting energy storage is
| very low_
|
| That's backwards: the power density is high, but the
| energy density is low.
| jansan wrote:
| More destructive weapons. Of course I am being cynical, but
| that will certainly be one of the outcomes.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I thought there was something about waste heat being a
| problem in outer space, so if this fixes that it could open
| the door for space-based laser weapons and other terrible
| things. GDI Ion Cannon when?
| leshokunin wrote:
| I mean Russia claims they have battle dolphins. Might as
| well.
| astrange wrote:
| The US navy also has battle dolphins.
|
| https://thebulletin.org/2022/03/how-dolphins-protect-the-
| us-...
| jerf wrote:
| Maybe around the edges, but existing weapons are plenty
| destructive and many of them do not operate in an electronic
| regime except for control systems. Rail guns would probably
| get more effective but they're still not really all that
| useful and lasers might get more effective but again not
| really a material change to the battlefield, only an
| incremental one.
|
| It's hard to develop a technology that can't be used by the
| military in _some_ capacity but as such things go this one
| seems substantially more useful to everyone than useful to
| militaries.
| bhaak wrote:
| Maglev trains, fusion power plants, fanless super computers in
| your pocket that charge in a minute and don't get hot.
|
| Basically utopia.
| l33t233372 wrote:
| I don't understand how superconductors will make phones into
| supercomputers. There is a still the limitation of the number
| of transistors in a given volume.
|
| Also, how does this help fusion become possible?
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| Superconductors can make very powerfull lossless
| conductors, and therefore powerfull magnetic fields. Which
| is great if you need to contain a fusion reaction. Also not
| needing to cool one side to near 0k and the hot side to
| millions of degrees helps viability of fusion.
|
| Processors basacally convert almost all power into heat by
| resistive losses. With room temparature superconductors
| you'll only consume energy on the state changes of the
| processor.
|
| With this superconductive material you could create loops
| of wire (like a resistor) but instead it would store energy
| practically lossless in a few seconds.
|
| Superconductivity up to 100c and 1bar would be a historic
| moment in human ingenuity.
| cl0ckt0wer wrote:
| The interconnects would have better loss functions. We'd be
| able to crank up the frequency to processor levels.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| The clock speeds are 100x higher so we don't need to match
| 1 for 1 with silicon transistors to have advantages.
| yetihehe wrote:
| > I don't understand how superconductors will make phones
| into supercomputers.
|
| Currently transistors and connections use a lot of power
| just to transfer some bits, superconducting wires and maybe
| transistors would help.
|
| > Also, how does this help fusion become possible?
|
| Stronger magnets which you don't need to cool with liquid
| helium will help achieve better plasma confinement.
| kickopotomus wrote:
| Superconductors may reduce power consumption but they
| don't do anything to improve transistor density.
| l33t233372 wrote:
| That's really interesting. It seems like this technology
| could be huge
| p1mrx wrote:
| We've already passed the point where superconductors need
| liquid helium:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor
|
| "The most probable candidate material is yttrium barium
| copper oxide, with a design temperature of 20 K, allowing
| various coolants (e.g. liquid hydrogen, liquid neon, or
| helium gas) instead of the much more complicated liquid
| helium refrigeration chosen by ITER."
| DrBazza wrote:
| Maybe it will be the thing that gives the US a nudge towards
| building a high speed train network. Commodity maglev would
| be generational leap over existing high speed rail. It would
| be an economic driver for the US, and take a lot of planes
| out of the sky, and even freight off the roads.
| rcpt wrote:
| Ultra efficient super fast maglev trains between our most
| important cities? Not in MY backyard!
| bick_nyers wrote:
| You want to bury a power cable connecting my city to a
| solar farm in the Sahara desert? Not in MY backyard!
| zardo wrote:
| Oh you say it's made out of lead, well in that case could
| you run my drinking water through it?
| psychoslave wrote:
| While these are all cool applications, I can perfectly see
| them used in the most awful dystopian world imaginable.
| autoexec wrote:
| I can't remember the last time a new technology became
| widely available that wasn't somehow used against us.
| There's always a catch. New products are often designed to
| work on behalf of people other than the "owner", and often
| are designed to prevent the "owner" from being able to do
| what they want with the product.
| [deleted]
| XCSme wrote:
| Someone posted a ChatGPT answer, which seems a pretty good
| response:
|
| Energy Efficiency: Superconductors conduct electricity without
| resistance, which means they don't produce heat as a byproduct.
| This could make electronic devices more energy-efficient and
| help them run cooler, which could extend battery life in mobile
| devices and potentially reduce the need for cooling in larger
| devices like computers.
|
| Processing Speed: Superconducting circuits could potentially
| operate at higher speeds than conventional circuits, which
| could lead to faster processors and more powerful computers and
| smartphones.
|
| Data Storage: Superconductors could also be used to create more
| efficient and compact data storage devices. For example, they
| could be used in the development of Magnetic Random Access
| Memory (MRAM), a type of non-volatile memory that uses magnetic
| states to store information. This could potentially offer
| faster and more energy-efficient data storage than current
| technologies.
|
| Quantum Computing: Superconductors are already used in some
| types of quantum computers, which use the principles of quantum
| mechanics to perform complex calculations much more quickly
| than conventional computers. A room-temperature superconductor
| could make quantum computers more practical and affordable,
| which could have a profound impact on many areas of technology
| and science.
|
| Power Transmission: Superconductors can transmit electricity
| without any loss, which could dramatically increase the
| efficiency of power grids. This could reduce energy costs,
| decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and make renewable energy
| sources more viable.
|
| Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) Trains: Superconductors can
| produce powerful magnetic fields, which can be used to levitate
| trains above their tracks, reducing friction and allowing for
| higher speeds. Current maglev trains already use
| superconductors, but they require cooling to very low
| temperatures, which is expensive and energy-intensive. Room-
| temperature superconductors could make maglev trains more
| practical and affordable.
|
| Medical Imaging and Therapy: Superconductors are used in
| Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines to generate the
| strong magnetic fields required for imaging. Room-temperature
| superconductors could make MRI machines cheaper, more
| efficient, and more accessible. They could also be used in
| other medical technologies, such as particle beam therapies for
| cancer treatment.
|
| Scientific Research: Superconductors are used in a variety of
| scientific instruments, such as particle accelerators and
| detectors. Room-temperature superconductors could make these
| instruments more efficient and less expensive to operate.
|
| Electric Vehicles (EVs): Superconductors could be used to make
| more efficient electric motors and batteries for electric
| vehicles, potentially increasing their range and reducing their
| cost.
|
| Telecommunications: Superconductors could be used to create
| more efficient and higher-capacity communication networks,
| potentially improving internet speeds and reducing latency.
|
| Aerospace and Defense: Superconductors could be used in a
| variety of aerospace and defense applications, such as advanced
| radar systems, satellite technologies, and even propulsion
| systems.
| jacknews wrote:
| So basically 'more efficient'?
|
| I'd dispute the 'dramatically' more efficient power grids,
| unless that's couched in industry terms - ie a 10% reduction
| in transmission losses might be 'dramatic' for energy grid
| engineers. But not really world-changing, for the rest of us.
|
| "Aerospace and Defense: Superconductors could be used in a
| variety of aerospace and defense applications, such as
| advanced radar systems, satellite technologies, and even
| propulsion systems."
|
| OK, now we're getting somewhere. What new capabilities?
| r2_pilot wrote:
| SQUID sensors would be very feasible, with increased
| sensitivity. I just learned that extremely directional
| transceivers would be possible due to some weird quantum
| effects. Probably propulsion would be affected by higher
| efficiency motors. So it's a huge deal if it's real.
| jacknews wrote:
| Yes, I think sensors are the big potential application.
|
| Some motors are already 95%+ efficient, so 99% would
| hardly be a revolution, though reduced cooling would be a
| benefit.
| sokka_h2otribe wrote:
| Actually, going from 96-98% to 99% is still huge. Assume
| the lower efficiency motor is 100W. You waste 2-4.
| Presumably you can dissipate that amount of heat.
|
| Now, the same form factor can do 200-400W and be ok.
|
| So it doesn't change the efficiency of the system (we
| still use a bunch of wh) but it dramatically changes the
| form factor of the motor!
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Think of all the workarounds that we have to use to offset
| the waste heat and signal degradation of electricity
| (everywhere, including your computer/phone), and now
| imagine those things not existing.
| jacknews wrote:
| This assumes superconducting wires everywhere. I don't
| really see it happenning in microelectronics for example.
| You'd have to replace the entire silicon ecosystem with
| this new material. Not happening soon, probably never.
|
| But sure, for specific applications an increase to 'near
| 100%' efficiency could have important secondary effects,
| eliminating heat-sinks, etc.
| bick_nyers wrote:
| An ultra low power CPU that doesn't generate heat and has
| a clock frequency of 770GHz is hard to pass on.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Shorter, portable, lower energy railguns?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railgun
| api wrote:
| Faster, better, cheaper, and a lot of it.
| l33t233372 wrote:
| Asking the AI in my pocket what the new superconductor
| technology can do for society.
|
| We're kinda in the future, and that's neat.
| MaintenanceMode wrote:
| With apologies for being the pedantic person, you're not
| really asking the AI in your pocket. You're just using the
| web browser on your pocket computer to compose a message to
| the massive AI system running in some datacenter somewhere.
|
| Ironically, if this problem does get solved, you could have
| the whole AI system in your pocket.
| rcpt wrote:
| Oh ok so all he had to do was send a message from his
| hand to fucking space before he talk to the AI. Basically
| the dark ages here.
| l33t233372 wrote:
| That's implementation details, in my opinion. I reach
| into my pocket and talk to AI.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| Shareholders and CEOs increase their wealth.
| notsound wrote:
| I don't think we need new technology for that.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Oh man I look forward to this only needing 5 more years before we
| build one!
| Philpax wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from - breakthroughs in the
| lab often take years or decades to make their way into the
| public space, if they do at all - but to clarify: the synthesis
| procedure for LK-99 is simple enough that many labs can make a
| sample in a week. In fact, there are several parties attempting
| synthesis in public as we speak.
|
| If this is real, you're going to know about it very soon.
| 23B1 wrote:
| Just for fun: Am I the only one who thinks there's connection
| between this and the UAP news that's coming out? RTSC would
| probably enable a lot of incredible energy & maneuverability
| capabilities...
|
| Sorry, indulging in a little off-topic conspiracy theorizing.
| carabiner wrote:
| [flagged]
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| We haven't had "the beginning of AGI" and there is no reason
| cheaper electricity would "destabilize society".
| intrasight wrote:
| I agree on AGI, but a massive step function shift in energy
| will certainly destabilize society. The livelihoods of at
| least a hundred million people depends on fossil fuels.
| fastball wrote:
| Efficiency gains are always a win for society.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| "It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end
| of capitalism."
|
| --Mark Fisher
| dougmwne wrote:
| Aaactuallly...
|
| Our society is build on a foundation of relatively cheap
| energy. Massive amounts of energy are built into the
| production of every item of food that reaches your fridge
| or item that reaches your closet. The unleashing of stored
| energy was the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.
|
| If energy became 1000 or 1 million times cheaper, it would
| transform society. Global warming would be solved. Food
| would be solved. Water would be solved. Equal access to all
| materials goods would be solved. I'd personally be living
| in a Dr. Evil base on top of an alpine glacier that I
| myself re-froze. That or a floating city over the South
| Pacific.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| None of this is any sort of explanation for
| "destabilizing society".
|
| Even if nuclear fusion was perfected today it would take
| decades to build out and infrastructure would still be a
| big cost. That would take care of only electricity, not
| overall transportation.
| rndmwlk wrote:
| We aren't even close to the beginnings of AGI. An LLM is no
| closer to AGI than a model T is to a space elevator.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Finally those "has science gone too far" memes can be trendy
| again.
| orwin wrote:
| The fusion stuff seems like vaporware to me. It smells like
| Starship, Nikola or Theranos imho. Let's see in 5 years.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| I guess climate change will also destabilize society. But I
| know what you mean.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? It's not
| what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
| Sunspark wrote:
| We've known about superconductivity since 1911. For the sake of
| argument that Mussolini's UFO showed the way to "better"
| implementations of superconductivity, it wouldn't have taken
| this long if someone wanted to gradually leak it out, so I do
| think we did this all on our own.
| 23B1 wrote:
| UNLESS they were leaking it out with careful timing, using a
| proxy lab!
|
| Sorry sorry I know conspiracy theories are a rabbit hole of
| 'but what if' but damnit I WANT TO BE GEORGE JETSON!
| piyh wrote:
| David Grusch is literally talking heresay with zero first hand
| accounts. Heresay is not allowed in courts for a reason.
| Snowden blew the lid off an international conspiracy, and he
| had gigabytes of receipts.
|
| Grusch has talked to people who work in information constrained
| spaces working on advanced materials with fancy codenames. If
| he was able to give literally any proof besides words coming
| out of his mouth and "trust me bro, they could be
| interdimensional", I would give him some credence, but there is
| nothing.
| mdswanson wrote:
| Agree that it's second-hand...and even he states this. What
| about the 11 hours of testimony he's provided privately to
| congress that includes specific names, companies, and
| locations? What about the first-hand witnesses that congress
| has heard from that back-up Grusch's claims?
|
| I mean, there are some seemingly crazy accusations...but even
| if only some of them are accurate, they're worth looking in
| to. And if it's all false, it's still very interesting that
| so many trusted individuals are making such crazy claims.
| That is its own huge issue.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| There's also his request for access to a S.C.I.F. (lnk
| below) in which to discuss more fully what he's alleging.
|
| Complaining he didn't give up everything he knows on live
| TV/streaming seems a bit unfair as the guy was active
| military and wants to keep his clearance.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/23/politics/what-is-a-
| scif/index...
| willis936 wrote:
| It is fun to joke about alien technology.
|
| But they are unrelated in reality. In fact they are pretty
| uncorrelated in terms of timeline. This material has supposedly
| been waiting in the wings for a while.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > has supposedly been waiting in the wings for a while
|
| I'm not sure if that holds, the tic tac UFO has no actual
| wings :P
| johncalvinyoung wrote:
| idiom stems from waiting in the wings of the stage... i.e.
| just out of sight of the audience.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Rumours about UFOs being hidden by the US government have
| also been in the wings for a while - like 70, 80 years.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| People are quick to dismiss astrology, but the last time Pluto
| entered Aquarius (which will happen for the next 20 years
| starting in Dec) we had the Industrial Revolution. The time
| before that we had the Scientific Revolution. Things are right on
| track with this discovery.
| jtsiskin wrote:
| You could also achieve this with 30 random sine waves of
| different amplitude and frequencies.
|
| You could find patterns like "when wave B intersects wave K,
| there's a global pandemic within 5 years"!
|
| https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
| alexb_ wrote:
| Correlation is not causation. Why would the position of the
| planets have anything to do with the discovery of revolutionary
| technology?
| sibeliuss wrote:
| That's a great question that nobody knows the answer to.
|
| Again, the last time this planet was positioned as such
| radical technological world-changing innovation happened
| (Industrial Revolution). Rewind a few hundred years, and we
| see it happen again (Scientific Revolution). Another
| revolution is incoming.
| alexb_ wrote:
| I doubt I'm going to convince you of anything. But it is
| nonsensical to think that the position of the planets have
| any effect on people. You see a correlation in two data
| points and are extrapolating it, despite having no
| explanation as to why that would be the case. If you have
| an explanation as to why the position of Pluto would affect
| the development of technology, I would love to hear it.
| usednet wrote:
| [flagged]
| badman2001 wrote:
| Recent W&M Condensed Matter Physics Grad. Worked closely with HT
| Kim, not on this project. He is a trustworthy guy, knows his
| stuff. I think he is right when he calls the paper very sloppy, I
| am confused why there is no phase diagram and the sample purity
| seems suspect. These are things I think would have been addressed
| in peer review and would give me more confidence overall.
| Probably not fraud, but doesn't mean it's superconductivity.
|
| Not optimistic about replication in the next week too, Solid
| State Synthesis seems "easy" but in my experience can be
| problematic. Not an expert in that part though
| foven wrote:
| Glad to see a realistic take on HN. Endlessly frustrating to
| see people be like "this will be replicated in days". Yeah,
| sure, let every other lab just drop what they're doing, order
| all the reagents on express, do a thorough characterization
| making sure they understand the impurities and crystal phase,
| then perform good airtight measurements in a couple days.
| Crystal growth always has complications many times outside of
| your control - the most minor of things can cause ridiculous
| problems.
|
| Especially when they admit to having phase impurities, and it's
| not really clear how they've gone from bulk sample to
| measurement sample (are they really measuring just the
| superconductor or the impurity phase?). Needs addressing,
| especially when the Cu2S phase impurity seems to have a phase
| transition of it's own at or around 370K (suspiciously close to
| where some of their Tc measurements are).
| nemo44x wrote:
| To me the biggest mystery is why they didn't make multiple
| samples and send them to a few places that could verify their
| claims immediately. I understand that the papers were
| published before they really wanted to but they've also
| apparently have had samples for awhile it sounds like?
|
| So assuming it's not BS (and I doubt that it is) it would
| lead me to believe that making the material is difficult to
| get right? The video they've produced uses a sample that
| isn't particularly elegant, to be sure.
|
| I guess it's all conjecture at this point and healthy
| skepticism is warranted. A press conference would be nice.
| badman2001 wrote:
| i do not understand this either regarding the samples,
| usually(in my limited experience) synthesis groups have
| collaborators that specialize in transport or other types
| of measurements which I think would have added a bit of
| credibility, probably could have gotten a measurement of
| Tc, and just generally added a lot to the paper
| distortionfield wrote:
| That could very well have been their plan, they just got
| beat to the punch by the paper leak. Shrug. Probably won't
| get the full story til next summer when Netflix inevitably
| does a C tier docu-drama series about it.
| scarmig wrote:
| Skepticism is warranted, but apparently there's infighting
| in the group (only 3 people can be recipients of a Nobel
| Prize) and one jumped the gun to get his name out there.
| And also apparently fear of research espionage from the PRC
| (not as far-fetched as it sounds).
| geertj wrote:
| Interesting.. would you have a source for those rumors?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| It's just speculation because the third author on the
| first paper isn't an author on the second, better paper,
| and he's the one who published it.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Man, fucking scientists dude, they need to get their
| heads on straight
|
| If you're one of the 7 people who invented room
| temperature superconductivity, it's not going to matter
| who has the Nobel Prize. You can take a part time 7
| figure consulting gig and be as famous as you want to
| boot
| tedsanders wrote:
| Most famous discovers of famous phenomena do not get 7
| figure consulting gigs. Did any discoverers of high Tc
| superconductors, quantum hall, topological insulators,
| blue LEDs, graphene get rich? Not as far as I know.
| rat9988 wrote:
| He probably won't even get 6 figure consulting gig.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I mean being thorough will obviously take a long time, but if
| a decent number of research groups decide to drop what
| they're doing and attempt a replication I don't think it
| would take that long for one of them to at least partially
| succeed if the claim is true. That doesn't mean they're
| publishing a sister paper, but it might mean we see some
| tweets saying "my group synthesized LK-99 and we have reason
| to believe it may be a rtp superconductor"
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| In the New Scientist interview HT Kim seemed to imply that he
| wouldn't help other researchers until his paper gets
| published. If the synthesis ends up being tricky this could
| take a while.
| adrian_mrd wrote:
| Link to the New Scientist article is:
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2384782-room-
| temperatur...
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Feels like you're strawmanning the idea here. It's not "every
| lab" it's "at least one lab".
|
| Jeez I sure hope at least one lab can spare the time to
| bother reproducing a room temperature semiconductor claim.
| smallnamespace wrote:
| One lab is definitely not adequate.
|
| Replication attempts don't give you an unambiguous signal,
| many things can go wrong.
|
| If one lab hasn't succeeded in replicating the paper, does
| that mean the paper is wrong, or just that a necessary step
| wasn't documented clearly or followed correctly?
|
| More labs trying to replicate give you more independent
| signals.
| faraggi wrote:
| But if one lab *does* succeed, it means there probably is
| something of substance.
| scarmig wrote:
| Cold fusion also replicated across multiple labs, before
| they all retracted shortly after.
| giarc wrote:
| >Glad to see a realistic take on HN.
|
| From an account created 1 hour ago, claiming to have worked
| with the author. Take with a huge grain of salt.
| xwdv wrote:
| I would _only_ expect these kinds of posts from a throwaway
| account created very recently with a single post.
|
| Anyone with a long HN history is more likely trying to
| karma farm and chase clout by spinning up some bullshit.
| Trying to establish themselves as an authority on a
| trending topic.
|
| But because a throwaway account has no past or future, it
| is the purest form of communication.
| badman2001 wrote:
| i agree re. skepticism but all I'm saying about HT Kim is
| that he's a real scientist with real bona fides, which I
| think you could find by asking anyone in my specific
| subfield of condensed matter physics
| badman2001 wrote:
| i should also have mentioned that I do not personally
| know the extent of his knowledge about superconductivity,
| to my understanding he was an expert on the synthesis of
| phase change materials, particularly the metal insulator
| transition. in the 2nd paper he is cited for proposing
| the superconductivity mechanism based on mechanisms seen
| in the metal-insulator-transition, which I have not seen
| before as an SC mechanism
| airgapstopgap wrote:
| It is entirely believable that a person with substantial
| trace on HN and ties in the field would rather create a
| throwaway than post such remark under his main account.
| willis936 wrote:
| Then they would not out their identity by claiming to
| have worked with the author. That piece of information
| alone whittles their identity down to maybe 100 people.
| Out of 100 adjacent academics how many post on HN, with
| this style, and this specific level of knowledge in that
| specific subfield? They may as well have just made the
| account their irl name. Anonymity is not a realistic
| goal. Assuming a realistic poster means it's reasonable
| to suspect their earnestness.
| djhope99 wrote:
| Interesting thread, looks like a lot of labs are on the charge to
| replicate this
| https://twitter.com/alexkaplan0/status/1684554551481835520?s...
| [deleted]
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| Can someone help me understand what it means for a superconductor
| (which should have zero resistance) to have such a low current
| capacity? Does this mean it's possible to have a voltage drop
| across the superconductor? Does that voltage drop somehow not
| result in power dissipation? Is it something like capacitive or
| inductive reactance?
| timerol wrote:
| Superconductors aren't always superconducting. There is a set
| of circumstances in which superconduction happens. If the
| current is below this limit, voltage is 0. If current is above
| this limit, then voltage is more accurately predicted from bulk
| resistivity numbers. This image is on it's side from a normal
| I-V curve, but accurately describes the relationship:
| https://i.stack.imgur.com/5Irds.jpg. At Ic the material stops
| superconducting.
|
| Note that there are temperature and magnetic field effects on
| the value of Ic, which in every other currently-known material
| is 0 at 300 K.
| MobiusHorizons wrote:
| Thanks that explanation makes a lot of sense.
| in3d wrote:
| LinkedIn post from one the authors:
| https://twitter.com/8teapi/status/1684571913908293633
| Exuma wrote:
| wow, this is the kind of content I'm here for!
| nemo44x wrote:
| That's extremely hilarious if real. He basically just told the
| guys at the Max Plank institute they're lazy theoreticians that
| don't understand chemistry and can't be bothered to put in the
| work like he has. (over 100 attempts at making this!)
| colechristensen wrote:
| This is a great kind of rivalry between theory folks and
| applied folks. When good natured it can be a lot of fun. It's
| also important to have these two kinds of groups annoyed with
| each other poking holes in each others methods.
| AlanYx wrote:
| The Wikipedia article on LK-99 now references a Korean source
| claiming that this was submitted to Nature in 2020 but that the
| paper was rejected.
| giarc wrote:
| From other comment in this thread.
|
| synapsomorphy 4 minutes ago | prev | next [-]
|
| The lead author says (translated): "In 2020, I submitted my
| research results to Nature for the first time, but Nature felt
| burdened about publishing the paper because of Professor Dias'
| case, and asked for it to be published in other professional
| journals first."
|
| https://n.news.naver.com/article/366/0000920152
| [deleted]
| donaldcuckman wrote:
| [dead]
| gitfan86 wrote:
| I'm leaning towards this being mostly legit. It may not be a
| perfect solution to the problem, but it may put us on a path to a
| solution.
|
| If this wasn't real, I would have expected someone who works in
| the area to have data about something similar and why it isn't
| real.
| naillo wrote:
| You can tell when someone shouldn't be listened to online if they
| feel a need to give a "take" to this piece of news. Just wait
| until we get actual results if you don't have a physics phd at
| minimum no need for any rushed take otherwise.
| dang wrote:
| You're asking people not to be people. Having reactions and
| opinions and shooting the shit is what we do, and part of how
| we learn.
|
| HN is an internet watercooler. It's natural and fine for people
| to talk about the latest interesting things--that's what this
| place is for, and there's no need to be right all the time.
| naillo wrote:
| You're right dang
| bandyaboot wrote:
| If this confirms, I _really_ hope that the current limitation can
| be overcome. That would be brutal to actually find a ambient
| temperature and pressure SC only to have its usefulness for big
| real world applications be nerfed.
| synapsomorphy wrote:
| The other comments are correct, but I'll add that (if there's
| actually SC going on) there's not even necessarily a current
| limitation. Only a current was reported in the paper, not a
| cross-sectional area, and the sample being used appears to have
| been a thin film, the thickness of which we have no idea.
| slashdev wrote:
| I think the most important thing is it proves it can be done.
|
| At one point it was thought impossible to run a 4 minute mile.
| There were all kinds of scientific sounding explanations why it
| just couldn't be done. Then someone did it. Shortly after that,
| lots of people did it, because now people knew it was possible.
|
| If this is for real, it proves it can be done. Tons of money,
| work, and innovation will follow once people know the problem
| can be solved.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| I've heard this repeated. I vaguely recall it at least being
| a point of discussion in the novel Misery.
|
| But... that seems like such a stupid idea. What evidence
| could they possibly have suggested?
| scarmig wrote:
| If it's confirmed, people will be investigating improving the
| process for manufacturing LK-99 almost immediately and have
| some success, as well as looking into similar materials with
| different doping etc. It's likely that there would be at least
| some that also exhibit RTP superconductivity, though it's also
| likely they would share many of LK-99's weaknesses. Though
| that's all getting ahead of ourselves...
| synapsomorphy wrote:
| The lead author says (translated):
|
| "In 2020, I submitted my research results to Nature for the first
| time, but Nature felt burdened about publishing the paper because
| of Professor Dias' case, and asked for it to be published in
| other professional journals first."
|
| https://n.news.naver.com/article/366/0000920152
| tersh wrote:
| The median prediction for whether this gets independently
| confirmed is sitting at 25%:
| https://www.metaculus.com/questions/18090/room-temp-supercon...
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Someone also previously linked this betting market here which
| currently has it at only 16%. https://polymarket.com/event/is-
| the-room-temp-superconductor...
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| So technically the question asked is only if "the first
| independent replication attempt" will confirm (current guess
| 10%) and I think thats about right I can imagine there is a lot
| of 'build Twitter in a weekend' going on and it will take a
| while before the dust settles and there is a solid replication
| to base a solid conclusion.
| ddp26 wrote:
| Now down to 19%. Starting to stabilize, at 143 forecasters.
| alexose wrote:
| The 'nays' getting lots of traction on twitter right now
|
| https://twitter.com/alexkaplan0/status/1684642852616192000
| madacol wrote:
| For context, he is the same guy that went viral
| yesterday[0] excited with optimism, now saying there are
| other more possible explanations for the results besides
| superconductivity
|
| [0]:
| https://twitter.com/alexkaplan0/status/1684044616528453633
| Mizza wrote:
| Some schmo with an instant coffee company. There's no need
| to surface random people's opinions.
| nancyhn wrote:
| Einstein was some schmo working at a patent office...
| rcpt wrote:
| But it's tech instant coffee
| tcmb wrote:
| ... whether it gets confirmed by _the first_ independent
| attempt.
| giarc wrote:
| Predicted by random people on the internet as well.
| fleischhauf wrote:
| I'm also highly scheptical but if you'd asked a bunch of random
| people wether or not the relativity theory is true or nuclear
| weapons when they were first demonstrated they probably would
| have been equally sceptical
| sweezyjeezy wrote:
| What does that prove though? It's not wrong to doubt
| extraordinary hypotheses just because they are _sometimes_
| correct. Consider all the times those kinds of hypotheses are
| confirmed to be wrong.
| willis936 wrote:
| Right, in which case asking a broad audience will be, at
| best, noise.
| it_citizen wrote:
| Can someone ELI5 if the video with the magnet levitating is
| supposed prove something? Is this visual result only possible
| with superconductors? If so, why?
| svachalek wrote:
| Magnets can also levitate over other magnets, so it's not only
| possible with superconductors. But it does happen with
| superconductors. The magnet will induce a current in the
| superconductor, which creates a magnetic field, which repels
| the magnet.
| eesmith wrote:
| > Magnets can also levitate over other magnets
|
| Earnshaw's theorem describes why a free-floating
| (paramagnetic) magnet cannot levitate over another such
| magnet. There must be at least one stable axis which is not
| from a magnet. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnshaw%27s_theorem
|
| > The magnet will induce a current in the superconductor
|
| That's a different sort of levitation. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodynamic_suspension . We
| know it's not the same because you can see a magnet floating
| above a superconductor even though there's no motion.
|
| The relevant reason is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdiamagnetism .
|
| ] Superconducting magnetic levitation is due to
| superdiamagnetism, which repels a permanent magnet which
| approaches the superconductor, and flux pinning, which
| prevents the magnet floating away.
|
| ] Superdiamagnetism is a feature of superconductivity.
| it_citizen wrote:
| So does that mean the video would exclude honest mistakes
| from the researchers? Either it is indeed a superconductor
| at room temperature or the makers of video actively faked
| the result.
| eesmith wrote:
| I'll quote from the linked-to page:
|
| > In both of these magnetic repulsion videos, keep in
| mind that magnetic repulsion and/or levitation are not,
| by themselves, probative of superconductivity: a
| diamagnetic material such as pyrolytic graphite [16], can
| be made to levitate [19] in a magnetic field without
| being superconductive.
|
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation#Dia
| magneti... .
| mgsouth wrote:
| The levitation results from something called "diamagnetism"
| [1]. Diagmagnetism induces a magnetic field that opposes the
| original field; in this case it pushes the magnet away from the
| sample material.
|
| All superconductors are strongly (perfectly, actually)
| diamagnetic, and its a classic cool demonstation of their
| properties. However, not all strongly diamagnetic things are
| superconductors. In fact, diagmagnetism is present in all
| materials, but it is usually swamped by other magnetic effects
| (ferromagnetism and paramagnetism).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamagnetism
| worik wrote:
| This really reminds me of "cold fusion"
|
| We all really wanted that to be true, too.
|
| Patience, is all that is available to us that do not have a lab
| able to replicate
| out_of_protocol wrote:
| Actually, cold fusion exists! Even energy-positive at that.
| It's just not positive enough - current production method is
| too wasteful to be of practical use (creating muon is too
| expensive atm).
|
| See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muon-catalyzed_fusion
| mijoharas wrote:
| So, has anyone seen any of the replication studies start coming
| in yet? From what I've read we seem to be waiting on those. (and
| I think they're likely coming today or tomorrow?)
| sergiotapia wrote:
| There's a dude on twitter who's replicating it himself first-
| hand. He has the know-how and the process is "trivial" in his
| own words.
|
| https://twitter.com/andrewmccalip
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| I'm following this fellow: https://twitter.com/andrewmccalip
|
| Seems to have the right energy
|
| [edit thanks folks]
| https://nitter.net/i/status/1684433849781202944
|
| Here's a more colorful play by play as well:
|
| https://nitter.net/8teapi/status/1684586672917565443
| Natsu wrote:
| It's amazing to think that this might be replicated using
| equipment they put googly eyes on and named "Sucky
| McSuckface."
|
| I look forward to this historical footnote leading to many
| clickbait articles in the future.
| scarmig wrote:
| I love the colorful play-by-play. It could almost be a
| kdrama.
|
| It's also kind of crazy that one of the authors did over 1000
| experiments until he found LK-99, regardless of whether it
| checks out. Talk about a grind mindset.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's very much like how we eventually got working
| electric light. 1000's of failures and then something that
| really worked.
| techdragon wrote:
| Material science can be like that ... you're pretty sure
| your theory works and your results don't wildly invalidate
| it, but they aren't good enough or are missing a property
| or something... and it turns out you could very easily have
| made a bad batch, poorly aligned fibers, badly mixed epoxy,
| or any number of possible issues... so you try again and
| again to get it right... sometimes it's for very little
| incremental progress in state of the art... other times it
| might be a Nobel prize winning superconductor.
| scarmig wrote:
| In undergrad, I spent countless hours with a mortar and
| pestle, sintering, and annealing to research a particular
| superconductor, never getting much sleep because I had to
| wake up every couple hours to make sure nothing had gone
| awry... It tickles me that they were doing the same
| thing. Hoping that they get the big win here, for all of
| our sakes.
| ncann wrote:
| So the authors are disciples of a professor specialized in
| superconductor, their own Master and PhD were about
| superconductor, then they created a lab/company specifically
| for researching superconductor. This is contrary to my
| earlier belief that they were just normal chemists/physicists
| that happened to stumble upon an interesting material.
|
| Unless they're lying through their teeth, it's hard to
| believe they would not recognize an actual SC when they see
| one.
| lamontcg wrote:
| https://twitter.com/8teapi/status/1684571913908293633
|
| Lee was stuck as an adjunct professor for 19 years. Kim
| thinks that physicists all have their head up their ass and
| he knows the shortcut to discovering superconductivity. And
| nature wouldn't publish their paper.
|
| Combined with their inability to accurately measure Tc and
| a lot of skepticism already out there that their graphs
| show what they say they do this looks like poor science.
|
| Which is not to accuse them of lying. It looks like they're
| just not very good, but think they're geniuses.
| saberdancer wrote:
| And what of Kwon and HT Kim?
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| This is amazing thank you for the link. Absolutely wild time
| to be alive
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Can you summarize his position? Can't see X posts without a
| login.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| He's just some guy at an aerospace startup who is trying to
| make some lol.
|
| Problem with his approach is that the synthesis requires
| some materials that are restricted to academic/scientific
| labs (like red phosphorus), so he's probably not going to
| be first to replicate.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| Looks like he found a lab willing to hook him up. https:/
| /twitter.com/thedanaddison/status/1684587778959618048...
| otherjason wrote:
| You can see the full thread via alternative Twitter clients
| like Nitter:
| https://nitter.net/i/status/1684433849781202944
| mikenew wrote:
| Is this guy posting anywhere besides Twitter (or... X)? I
| can't view without an account.
| MayeulC wrote:
| You can use the nitter frontend:
| https://nitter.net/andrewmccalip
| psychoslave wrote:
| LOL they really renamed it X? I see they even bought x.com
| which surely they paid some ridiculous amount for, and yet
| they wasn't able to spend any cent on original logo, at
| least X.org logo as an orange O.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Using a unicode character might have been deliberate. It
| lets anyone stick your logo on a post on another
| platform. Allows viral marketing even in places where
| posting an image is high friction and/or where hyperlinks
| are banned.
|
| We'll have to wait and see if such a move is a good
| one...
| MayeulC wrote:
| I just had a look to see if X.com was available, but it
| looks like the punycode encoding is x.com anyway.
| mutant_glofish wrote:
| Musk has owned the X.com domain since at least 2017. [1]
| And even that was buying it back from PayPal. X.com was
| an online bank co-founded by Musk in 1999 which was later
| on merged into PayPal. [2]
|
| [1]: https://domaininvesting.com/elon-musk-acquires-x-
| com-domain/
|
| [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com
| falcor84 wrote:
| > even bought x.com
|
| Elon Musk re-bought the domain 6 years ago, after having
| originally owned it since 1999, apparently being very
| attached to it [0]. As for the logo, yeah, I agree there.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X.com
| Mockapapella wrote:
| Elon has personally owned x.com for a number of years
| now. Timeline as I remember it is Elon bought it in the
| late 90's, it changed hands when paypal merged with
| Elon's payment company, then he bought it back in 2017ish
| psychoslave wrote:
| Still make me laugh. I doubt the 2017 transfer costed
| $10. Let's just recall all the more that domains are
| never really own, and that seems all the more crazy to my
| mind. Though I guess that when you let single individuals
| able to claim indefinitely large amount of ownership,
| that's unavoidable waste of resources.
| [deleted]
| Fordec wrote:
| Today might be a bit soon. We only caught wind of this Tuesday
| and there's about two days of cooking to be done in the
| process. Friday if someone is basically livestreaming and
| literally had everything on hand. My guess is more likely
| Monday for the aggressive builders that get it right the first
| time (if it's able to be got right). Then Wednesday/next
| Thursday for attempt number 2 to complete out for some people.
| tux3 wrote:
| There are several rumors from zhihu.com posts that various
| Chinese labs are racing to replicate it (which is not
| unexpected). Some claims that "The Institute of Physics of the
| Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully synthesized the
| sample".
|
| Many labs around the world are capable of synthesizing the
| material (which is not that hard, relative to the baseline for
| superconductor candidates). We should expect to see early
| chatter and observation from replication attempts within double
| digit number of hours.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| Lead? Improbable.
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