[HN Gopher] Possible Meissner effect near room temperature: copp...
___________________________________________________________________
Possible Meissner effect near room temperature: copper-substituted
lead apatite
Author : zaikunzhang
Score : 517 points
Date : 2024-01-03 13:19 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arxiv.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (arxiv.org)
| MadnessASAP wrote:
| So they've possibly discovered a material wlthat may have a
| property that could be indicative of superconductivity at room
| temperature? It's a shame I don't have any popcorn handy.
|
| I do however appreciate their dedication to not putting the word
| superconductor in the title.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Well, it's an Arxiv paper. Arxiv is perhaps not the best
| environment for clickbait headlines.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Give the cesspit formerly known as Twitter a couple of hours
| and they'll be breaking out the laser eyes again, buzzword in
| the paper or not.
| checker659 wrote:
| AI bros can context switch to superconduction must faster
| than that.
| yinser wrote:
| I know it looks silly but what was wrong with being
| optimistic about what would be the biggest physical discovery
| since the transistor? Acting like an expert when you're not
| is something that I'd say happens on HN just as often as on
| Twitter. Learn to let it go
| j_maffe wrote:
| There's difference between raising hope and raising hype.
| Those Twitter gurus ride on any wave convincing of people
| of whatever they can just to get more traffic. It's mostly
| harmless until you find people obsessing over updates and
| start betting on it.
| highwaylights wrote:
| This - these aren't hopeful people with a layman's
| understanding cheering on the scientific method, they're
| hype bros looking to gather gullible followers and shill
| cryptocurrencies to them based on yet another thing
| they're utterly clueless about and don't care to inform
| themselves on.
| refulgentis wrote:
| I love "They-ing" because if it's even lightly questioned
| someone will jump in to explain they know They, and add
| even more qualifiers. Ex. if we weren't on HN "tech bros"
| and "AI hype" would start being invoked.
|
| EDIT: I was wrong! On HN too!
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38854412
| appplication wrote:
| I don't think this is true. When I heard of LK-99, I
| remember talking of my friends about it and we sort of
| daydreamed about what it could mean for society if true.
| None of us are on social media anymore (except HN if you
| count that).
|
| Sometimes you just get excited, or want to be excited.
| Otherwise it's back to wake up, work, eat dinner, sleep.
| When cool stuff seems to be happening, why wouldn't we
| talk about it? Even if it ends up being a dud, it's still
| something to talk about out.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Those "twitter gurus" were actively trying to recreate
| the paper, and a lot of those "twitter gurus" are actual
| founders doing actual hardtech startups with relevant
| degrees and labs.
| gfodor wrote:
| You know you can block and mute people on Twitter, right?
| The actual true grifters of the kind you are talking
| about are pretty rare in terms of a per user basis
| (though get get lots of distribution), and most of them
| are very bad at concealing themselves.
| lupusreal wrote:
| People will bet on _literally anything_. That 's their
| own problem, not mine.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| That's way better than people dunking on lk-99 in the name of
| "science", quick to judge themselves while criticizing early
| results as too quick to judge
| plorg wrote:
| HN was absolutely choked with the same sort of would-be
| experts, reading the Wikipedia page for Superconductors and
| trying to post their way into a position of authoritative
| knowledge. Certainly there are more on Twitter as a
| consequence of the larger use base, but those two weeks
| involved some of the most unhinged hype-posting I've seen in
| the decade I've been following HN.
| ummonk wrote:
| Looks like they have observed what they can only explain as
| apparent superconductivity, but consistent with the Sagan
| principle are being rather cautious with how they report it.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| You know what, one of the authors wrote pretty much the same
| elsewhere.
|
| Ke Yi Zhe Yang Li Jie : Ren Lei Huan Mei You Yi Qi Neng Ce
| Dao Li Lun Yan Ge Yi Yi Shang De Mai Si Na , Suo Yi Jia
| possibleShi Chu Yu Dui Zi Ran Fu Za Xing De Jing Wei .
| (Translation: It can be understood this way: humans do not
| yet have instruments that can measure Meissner in the strict
| sense of the theory, so adding possible is out of awe of the
| complexity of nature.)
|
| Source: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/675576020
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm not holding my breath for room temperature semiconductors
| anymore. I've gotten excited too many times. If they come,
| great. If they don't, no emotional investment here.
|
| What interested me with this line of research is that it seems
| like even if they are completely wrong about it being
| superconductive, it looked like they might be on to some novel
| electromagnetic effects, which while not as exciting as hover
| trains or long haul EVs, might mean punctuated improvements in
| more mundane items.
| jonathan_oberg wrote:
| Ice broke last year ... this may not be the one, nor maybe the
| next dozen materials but seems like we are on the right glide
| path now.
|
| <crosses fingers>
| yreg wrote:
| > seems like we are on the right glide path now
|
| In what sense? Public interest? LK-99 wasn't an incremental
| step toward room temp superconductivity, was it?
| sureglymop wrote:
| Public interest and popularity are not bad though. Raised
| interest, more funding etc. can all be good things and
| accelerate this research.
| yreg wrote:
| I'm not saying it is, but I wouldn't say that previously we
| weren't on the right path to that discovery and now, thanks
| to public interest, we are.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> In what sense? Public interest? LK-99 wasn't an
| incremental step toward room temp superconductivity, was it?
|
| It was an incremental step toward this material. It also had
| some interesting properties at higher temperatures even if
| superconductivity wasn't one of them. It seemed really
| strange to me that LK99 was tossed aside so quickly. It got
| discredited faster than cold fusion, which is still lingering
| today under different names BTW.
| yreg wrote:
| > It was an incremental step toward this material.
|
| Could you please explain how?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| this material is very similar to lk99, nobody would be
| studying it if not for the lk99 hubbub
| tux3 wrote:
| Right. Going back to the original message though, this
| doesn't say anything about whether or not this is the
| right path.
|
| It's definitely a path.
| once_inc wrote:
| If this material exhibits the properties that the authors
| claim, then it most definitely is a massive step in the
| right direction. If so, the material can be applied in a
| significantly large number of settings at much lower
| upkeep costs. It can also lead us to another set of
| materials that might exhibit these properties at
| 20c/1atm.
| opello wrote:
| This is exactly why I'm still excited about all of this
| material science that I only appreciate from afar.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > It seemed really strange to me that LK99 was tossed aside
| so quickly.
|
| My understanding is that room-temperature superconductor
| claims come out on average every six months or so. So the
| impressive thing is that LK99 was tossed aside so quickly,
| but that it was treated as seriously as it was for as long
| as it was.
| admissionsguy wrote:
| This stuff is so 2023
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Counterpoint: Imagine this line of inquiry that the west has
| given up on lands China the breakthrough of the century? Given
| the way the US and EU are conspiring to withhold key chip fab
| tech, it would be absolutely hilarious if China covertly
| discovered room temperature superconductivity and the
| government withholds it as a domestic advantage; blowing away
| AWS and Microsoft's compute offering with something orders of
| magnitudes faster and reverse the tech playing field.
| londons_explore wrote:
| If China discovers this, publishes papers on it, and patents
| it, you can be 100% sure that the west will just ignore any
| patents and fabricate it themselves.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Keyword was 'covertly'. As in withheld from publication and
| controlled by the government
| londons_explore wrote:
| Possible, but many of the economic benefits would be lost
| if you needed to do it covertly.
|
| Can't exactly have room temperature superconducting
| monorails all over the nation without someone questioning
| exactly how you have room temp superconductors and nobody
| else does...
| h0l0cube wrote:
| I'm fancying that a centrally managed economy might be
| able to do this, where a democratic capitalist economy
| may not. But I agree it's a bit of a leap
| admissionsguy wrote:
| I am really relaxed about the US primacy in tech. It has all
| the systemic advantages and no fluke discovery would change
| that.
|
| I am also quite relaxed about this preprint. As far as I am
| concerned the issues pointed out in this post on an actual
| physics forums with regards to the famous LK-99 preprint
| still stand with regards to this new paper:
|
| https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/room-temperature-
| super...
| h0l0cube wrote:
| I wasn't talking specifically about this paper. If there's
| some merit to this line of inquiry, and it yields something
| revolutionary, I think the Chinese government would be
| foolish not to turn it into leverage. Especially given the
| recent adversarial climate in trade relations and access to
| advanced equipment
| admissionsguy wrote:
| Any technology will have a very long way from the initial
| discovery to widespread application. A swarm of tinkering
| US startups will beat any Chinese megaproject. You
| propose that it is developed covertly to such an extend
| that it becomes a game changer that disrupts the current
| power balance before the US realises. I strongly
| disbelieve that such things can happen outside of
| fiction. For example, Manhattan project was known to the
| Soviets very early.
| hobs wrote:
| Startups dont do massive infrastructure investment. The
| Manhattan project was not a startup, but one of the most
| expensive things the US government ever did.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| You could be right, but it's hard to know how history
| would play out if a 'new cold war' with China started
| today, and with such a unique technological asymmetry (as
| room temperature superconductivity), and with a country
| that has a great deal more technical capability, self-
| sufficiency, and scruples than the former USSR.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The thing that brings China all those boons is that they
| make and sell things to the rest of the world.
|
| Absent free trade, their advantages dwindle.
|
| So the current "just shy of declared adversarial
| relationships" is optimum for them. Pushed further, say
| by retaining exclusive access to a game changing
| technology, and they start losing trade relationships
| (arguably, already have as manufacturing reallocated to
| SE Asia).
| h0l0cube wrote:
| The trade war between the US and China (and the
| precipitating outcones) were instigated by the US. The
| withholding of ASML lithography equipment is a case in
| point.
|
| That said, in spite of tarrifs from the west, China still
| has plenty of skin in the game, and the hypothetical
| suggests that trade would still be open enough for China
| to profit
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| _> The trade war between the US and China (and the
| precipitating outcones) were instigated by the US._
|
| That's very arguable when it was the US who led the world
| in opening up to China in the 90s/early 2000s, opening
| its markets to China, bringing China into the WTO, etc.
| (all at great cost to middle class Americans). China was
| an economic basket case and incapable of developing on
| its own. No country in history has been more generous to
| another.
|
| And what did the US get in return? Currency manipulation,
| large scale economic espionage and mercantilist behavior,
| protectionism of Chinese markets and industries,
| fentanyl, militarization of South China Sea and bullying
| the countries there, largest and fastest military buildup
| since 1930s Germany, supporting Russia vs Ukraine,
| threatening war over Taiwan, etc. "Unrestricted warfare".
|
| The US didn't cause China to do any of that, that was all
| the CCP's decision. Responses like economic
| derisking/decoupling (aka trade war) are completely
| legitimate and unsurprising.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >it was the US who led the world in opening up to China
| in the 90s/early 2000s, opening its markets to China,
| bringing China into the WTO, etc. (all at great cost to
| middle class Americans). China was an economic basket
| case and incapable of developing on its own. No country
| in history has been more generous to another.
|
| This is hilarious revisionism. We didn't do any of that
| out of generosity, we did it for profit. We saw a huge
| pool of cheap labor and decided we wanted to let our
| companies exploit that. We rubbed our hands together and
| grinned while selling them the proverbial rope.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Lifting half a billion+ people out of poverty and
| enabling a country to modernize seems like a decent
| outcome.
|
| Regardless of the motivations and machinations on either
| government's part.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| If by "we" you mean the 1% of bankers and corporate
| executives who are the primary beneficiaries of
| drastically increased profit margins from outsourcing
| production to countries with no labor or environmental
| protections, then yes "we" did it for profit.
|
| But if by "we" you mean the large portion of the US
| middle class whose financial security and upward mobility
| was obliterated, then no "we" did not do it for profit
| and were extremely generous, sacrificial even, in lifting
| hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty when the
| CCP was unable to do that on their own.
|
| It's not like this is any surprise, Ross Perot was even
| explicitly warning about it back in 1992:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3LvZAZ-HV4
| aragonite wrote:
| > That's very arguable when it was the US who led the
| world in opening up to China in the 90s/early 2000s,
| opening its markets to China, bringing China into the
| WTO, etc. (all at great cost to middle class Americans).
| China was an economic basket case and incapable of
| developing on its own. No country in history has been
| more generous to another.
|
| I'm intrigued by the metrics you're using to conclude
| that the US has been _more_ generous towards China than
| it has been towards, say, Israel or even Mexico, as a
| matter of state policy. Especially considering that US
| placed China under trade embargo and singlehandedly
| denied it UN representation for 20+ years.
|
| The actions you are describing as representing a
| historically unprecedented level of generosity seems
| essentially to boil done to US agreeing to maintain
| normal trade relations with China, similar to those it
| has with nearly every other country. Worth noting that
| the US extends Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to _all_
| its trading partners -- it 's not some exclusive or rare
| privilege as its name might suggest but a standard
| practice in international trade.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| _> than it has been towards, say, Israel or even Mexico,_
|
| Partly due to what it cost the US public. Free trade with
| smaller countries hurts less than one-sided free trade
| with a protectionist mercantilist country 4x your
| population. (one-sided due to required joint ventures,
| unilateral bans on US social media, currency
| manipulation, among others)
|
| _> and singlehandedly denied it UN representation for
| 20+ years._
|
| To be pedantic, the US didn't deny China representation
| for 20+ years, just the CCP. The ROC was a founding
| member of the UN and permanent Security Council member.
| US just opposed the CCP replacing it until 1971. Given
| the instability of CCP regime during that time - famine,
| Cultural Revolution - that wasn't an unreasonable
| position.
|
| _> similar to those it has with nearly every other
| country._
|
| Except the Communist bloc countries, USSR, Cuba, etc.
| Extending MFN to China while they were still Communist
| was unprecedented.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Absent free trade, China still has all the experience and
| expertise they have acquired up until now.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| To sell to whom?
|
| Afaik, their domestic middle class market isn't nearby
| big enough to singlehandedly fuel their economy.
|
| And they'll economically-politically run up against the
| "middle class wants things like political power and
| freedom" if they try to balloon that class too quickly.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Sell? In the event that China is cut off from global
| trade, we're most likely talking about the lead up to a
| major war.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| If we're talking about total war, those are uncharted
| waters.
|
| Losing Taiwanese, Korean, Australian, and EU specialty
| and raw material imports would hurt. A lot.
|
| Goodbye substantial amounts of integrated circuits, oil,
| and iron and copper ore.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_tradi
| ng_... https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Count
| ry/CHN/Yea...
| robocat wrote:
| > A swarm of tinkering US startups will beat any Chinese
| megaproject.
|
| I like your fervent almost religious belief in the US. Is
| it reality? What boundaries: software, environmental.
|
| Shenzhen felt like the most capitalist place I have ever
| been. It didn't seem to have big boy VC capital. However
| every single person seemed to be running a small
| capitalist business.
|
| Want to see a swarm of businesses? Let one small business
| in Shenzhen be seen to make a profit, and watch how many
| competitors and supply chain businesses pop up and how
| quickly. I don't know if it is a no/low beaurocracy zone
| but I am guessing they don't have to worry too much about
| IP roadblocks. I imagine the biggest problem is too much
| competition?
|
| I suspect young adults grok capitalism better there
| because as children they were embedded in the culture of
| endeavour, unlike westernized countries.
|
| I wasn't there for long enough, but would love to hear
| what others think of business startup in Shenzhen.
| themerone wrote:
| China has one big advance over the US. A government willing
| to throw unlimited funds and specific science or
| engineering problems.
|
| To get that kind of commitment you the strong backing of
| senators from a dozen different states. It rarely happens
| in non military projects, and when it does it's a
| boondoggle. Look to the SLS project, $12 billion spent to
| recycle space shuttle engines from the 70s and 80s.
| azan_ wrote:
| And do they actually solve more science or engineering
| problems than US?
| LargeTomato wrote:
| Not yet but the US has a big head start. The gap is
| closing every day.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| I'd argue it helps them more with engineering and
| manufacturing/building problems than science ones.
|
| The latter, under any government type, don't have a great
| track record of massive government investment
| accelerating progress.
|
| Proof of concept level grants, sure! But it doesn't seem
| to scale past that. IMHO, a free market is a better GTM-
| stage+ capital allocator.
| btown wrote:
| It's worth noting that, at least on the electronics
| manufacturing side (which is indeed what we're talking
| about here) the undeniable success story of TSMC was very
| much a government-led capital structure from the
| beginning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC#History
|
| Government can often be a failure-prone capital
| allocator, but it can also result in improved alignment
| when an entire industry with wide socioeconomic
| implications is about to be born.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| TSMC, Korean chaebols, Japanese corporations.
|
| But I'd still hazard the exception rather than the rule,
| globally.
| Seanambers wrote:
| What you are describing is basically subsidies. Taiwan
| lowered the capital cost of TSMC thus made them more
| competitive than their competitors.
|
| The Chinese did much of the same with their tech sector
| especially Huawei if I remember correctly with gigantic
| tax breaks and cheap financing.
| hyperbovine wrote:
| If you count emigres, hell yes.
| hn8305823 wrote:
| > I am really relaxed about the US primacy in tech
|
| "Resting on your laurels" always ends badly.
|
| > It has all the systemic advantages
|
| Then let's take full advantage of them. We must remain
| extremely hungry for science/tech progress/breakthroughs or
| we _will_ eventually get run over.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| > "Resting on your laurels" always ends badly.
|
| And history is littered with examples of technological
| disruption ending empires
| philwelch wrote:
| Name some examples.
| 0xf00ff00f wrote:
| Byzantine Empire? Lasted over a thousand years, fell to
| the Ottoman cannons.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I agree with you - but there are counter examples.
|
| Germany made some amazing developments that were superior
| to allied tech, and they didn't win.
| philwelch wrote:
| By the time the Ottomans took Constantinople, the
| Byzantine Empire had been in decline for centuries
| already. The crusaders and Venetians took Constantinople
| 200 years previously, and while the Byzantines eventually
| recaptured it, that was still an ultimately fatal blow.
| And even that blow was only possible because Venice had
| been allowed to drift out of the Byzantine sphere of
| influence.
| sterlind wrote:
| the Spanish using guns and horses to topple the Aztec
| empire? and smallpox, but the guns and horses helped.
| philwelch wrote:
| The Aztecs were toppled because they had alienated all of
| their neighbors and vassal states. The main thing the
| Spanish did was to organize everyone against the Aztecs.
| They had guns and horses, sure, but not nearly enough to
| singlehandedly make a difference on the battlefield.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Fundamentally, we are not an empire - we are a republic.
| Feel like that has gotten lost in the noise recently.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The number one most systemic difference going forward is
| population. China already has hundreds of millions living
| the equivalent of a middle-class US lifestyle. That is a
| massive prosperous population to draw scientists, etc.
| from.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I wonder how can you effectively withhold it? If you make
| commercial products with it and sell them it's going to be
| reverse-engineered.
|
| It's only viable if it's exclusively used in military tech.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| You could offer a compute platform as a service. But I
| agree the applicability of the tech is probably broader
| than that.
| andruby wrote:
| It's an interesting thought experiment. I can entertain the
| idea of a superconductor staying a secret in a military
| environment, but I can't imagine it getting widescale
| commercial use and staying a secret.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Sure I think the idea fanciful, and I agree that keeping
| the tech from leaking would be close to impossible, but if
| the stakes were high enough, maybe a centrally governed and
| authoritarian government like China could pull it off. It's
| at least fun to think about.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| In this movie
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainstorm_(1983_film)
|
| a researcher builds a device that can record and play
| back experiences which takes up most of a room, in a
| meeting with his boss, he receives some secret microchips
| made of a room temperature superconductor that he uses to
| make headsets.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Thank you for that. I had never encountered this film. I
| think parallels could also be drawn to the (highly
| underrated) Counterpart Series, where a researcher in
| Berlin accidentally creates a portal to a parallel earth
| and a cold war between the two world ensues.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterpart_(TV_series)
| pmayrgundter wrote:
| Thank you. I was never able to find this again. Really
| enjoyed it!
| mindcrime wrote:
| I only just got around to watching Brainstorm sometime
| last year. It's far from a perfect movie, but definitely
| worth watching.
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| My understanding is that while you can reverse engineer
| something like a new material via trial and effort plus
| some basic lab analysis of samples.....stuff like chips are
| a PITA to reverse engineer.
|
| My understanding is that a major hurdle is just how tiny
| everything is on modern chiplets. If I remember
| right....someone managed to reverse engineer the Intel 8086
| or the 8080....but my understanding is that our lithography
| is so complex at this point you can't accurately reverse
| engineer the physical chip layout. If one could reverse
| engineer the physical layout and chemical layers...you
| could probably use that information to reverse engineer the
| photolithography mask and chemical etching step.
|
| TLDR: we can't reverse those modern server CPU's ....we can
| only learn via what the fan or the chiplet owner be it
| Intel or and or apple decides to release regarding
| architecture or chip layout.
| troglodynellc wrote:
| Back when I worked at TI we had a neat machine that used
| X-Rays to map and reverse competitor chips (mostly to
| discover they were duping ours). It would work down to
| just short of a 10nm resolution.
|
| You'd need to use gamma spectrography to map out more
| modern chips. I'm sure someone's got the equipment
| somewhere; the chip manufacturers themselves must verify
| they got a good etch somehow.
| tjpnz wrote:
| You assume the US and EU would be starting at zero.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| It's a hypothetical I haven't really ruminated on. But I
| suppose it would be a new cold war scenario with
| superconductivity supremacy swapped out for nuclear first-
| strike capability, and similar levels of espionage
| fallingknife wrote:
| Even if you had a room temp SC manufacturing chips out of it
| would be a whole different issue. In fact we already have a
| material that can be used to build chips that can be clocked
| a couple OOM higher than silicon. It's just graphite. But
| even with a well known material like that and decades to try,
| the manufacturing capability still isn't there.
|
| Agree with your overall point, though.
| barryrandall wrote:
| As someone whose every move is monitored by some of the most
| well-funded, best-equipped, and ethically questionable
| intelligence agencies his tax money can buy, I look forward
| to seeing how long they can keep this secret.
| graphe wrote:
| It doesn't need to be secret, just obscure. Don't believe
| the intelligence agencies are always intelligent or always
| there to help you or their host countries. Shin bet and
| their mishandling of Rabin and the recent October attacks
| prove this, as well as the CIA's pointless declassified
| wastes of money, often against American interests.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| I was making subtle reference to ASML withholding
| lithography machines from China. One could ask why China is
| yet to replicate their technology if know-how is so
| permeable
| criley2 wrote:
| One would imagine that the west would then engage in China's
| favorite playing field leveler: they'd steal the technology
| by whatever means necessary.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Probably. But you have to wonder if anything can be stolen
| and replicated, why haven't China managed to duplicate
| ASML's lithographic machines?
| louthy wrote:
| Just send Clint Eastwood in to steal it
| eunos wrote:
| Seeing China Watcher Cope and Seethe for entire year is
| enough for me
| highwaylights wrote:
| I laughed quite a bit at this
| moffkalast wrote:
| Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me- can't get fooled again.
| spacecity1971 wrote:
| Great to see research continuing on this particular path.
| matheweis wrote:
| Wasn't LK-99 a copper doped lead apatite? Is this different?
| sanxiyn wrote:
| This is a derivative, with slightly different chemical formula
| (namely, this includes sulfur, while LK-99 didn't).
| kuschku wrote:
| Though the original, supposedly superconducting LK-99 sample,
| was produced in a way that caused it to be contaminated with
| sulfur. So this might be why their sample acted the way it
| did.
| londons_explore wrote:
| If I am understanding correctly, this 'hysteresis' effect could
| also be caused by tiny bits of iron contamination in the sample?
| hwillis wrote:
| Simple answer: no. Ferromagnetic hysteresis increases with
| temperature, and the hysteresis here is stronger at lower
| temperatures. The amount of hysteresis they see at low
| temperatures is also too much to explain with undetected
| contamination. Plus, the scientists posted a picture of them
| fully floating a sample upside-down, which is pretty hard to
| explain away.
|
| Complex answer: Maybe. Copper sulfide does a lot of weird
| things, and it's very easy to screw with ferromagnetism in
| unexpected ways. It's totally possible there's a lot of iron in
| this sample, and the huge incentive for room temperature
| superconductors is a powerful temptation to slant your data...
| or fabricate it entirely:
| https://www.science.org/content/article/plagiarism-allegatio...
|
| That's my alma mater :(
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Some background: there were two Chinese teams publicly pursuing
| LK-99-derived room temperature superconductor, which I
| arbitrarily named "north China team" and "south China team".
| North China team was headed by Hongyang Wang (who lives in
| Beijing) and south China team was headed by Yao Yao (who lives in
| Guangzhou). They used different synthesis and different analysis,
| i.e. north China team used hydrothermal synthesis and used SQUID
| measurement, while south China team used solid state synthesis
| and used EPR measurement.
|
| This is a joint paper of both teams. They reproduced results of
| each other (this is unclear in the paper, but stated in their
| behind-the-scene posts) and measured a clear sign of
| superconductivity. It is "near room temperature", because they
| are sure about 250 K (hence "near"), but not sure about 300 K. As
| for "possible", the behind-the-scene post makes it clear it is
| false modesty.
|
| If you are interested, you definitely want to read behind-the-
| scene posts. Read them here:
| https://www.zhihu.com/question/637763289 (they are in Chinese).
| Hongyang Wang is Zhen Ke Ai Ai and Yao Yao is Xi Zhi Xi .
| bloopernova wrote:
| How does 250 K compare to current[1] superconductors?
|
| [1] pun definitely intended.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| 250 K at ambient pressure is still revolutionary, as it can
| be reached by dry ice. The highest critical temperature at
| ambient pressure had been something like 150 K: still above
| boiling point of liquid nitrogen, and won Nobel Prize in
| Physics in 1987.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| I grew up in Minnesota, and I have to laugh that 250 K is
| -9.67 F, and yeah, we had a lot of days like that. It's
| amazing to think that future childhood toys could be
| superconducting outside on those cold Minnesota days.
| rsaxvc wrote:
| Ask your hometown to build an antigravity skating rink
| with magnet shoes.
| MobileVet wrote:
| "Those boards don't work on water!"
| 14 wrote:
| I laugh but also sad I'm betting a lot of the younger HN
| crowd doesn't get the reference.
| sixothree wrote:
| Movies of the 80s and 90s feel a lot more modern compared
| to the "old movies" we had living in the 80s. Black and
| white movies with cardboard acting sure felt quaint for
| the tv generation.
|
| Today though I'm constantly surprised by the number of
| young people who recognize things from 80s movies and
| especially music. I'd say that number is higher compared
| to our generation.
| Sanzig wrote:
| The 80s and 90s produced a lot of movies that became pop
| culture classics (Back to the Future among them).
|
| Millenials and Gen Z grew up in an era with much easier
| access to older media than previous generations. First
| was the video store - while Gen X had this too, it really
| took off in the 90s. I remember when I was a kid in the
| late 90s and early 2000s, it was $5 to rent a new release
| or 3 for $5 for old releases. This meant that we were
| basically encouraged by our parents to watch older stuff,
| and of course the fact that they lived through the 80s
| themselves meant they tended to recommend movies to us
| from that era.
|
| Of course, after the video store came VOD services like
| Netflix. Old movies are a great way to pad out a VOD
| catalogue, so that increased the access to 80s/90s movies
| even more.
|
| It also doesn't hurt that, as you've pointed out, many of
| these films still hold up pretty well today.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| We started to get a lot of the classic movies in the 70s
| (Taxi Driver, Godfather, Star Wars, Halloween, Blazing
| Saddles, Rocky, Alien, Clockwork Orange, Exorcist, Jaws,
| Apocalypse Now just to name a few) and the 80s went
| absolutely wild and - particularly - far more broad. The
| kids films from the 80s didn't really exist before then
| (outside of Disney).
|
| In the 50s/60s there were less (but still some of per
| personal faves) and the dominant genres (Westerns
| particularly) have been out of fashion for at least 40
| years now.
| tempestn wrote:
| Recently shared the bttf series with my 11yo. The third
| doesn't hold up too well, but the first two are great.
| The funny part was that she saw the 80s and the 50s as
| basically the same.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The funny part was that she saw the 80s and the 50s as
| basically the same.
|
| Is that because neither of them have any electronic
| devices? They both have payphones and cars that don't
| look like today?
| stavros wrote:
| I think it's an issue of the fact that they're both
| "before my time". I treat the 20s and 50s as the same, I
| wouldn't be able to tell you any difference, even though
| they must be massively different.
| tempestn wrote:
| Yeah, they both just looked "old fashioned" to her.
| Obviously she could pick out some differences, but when
| they first went back to 1955, she didn't really notice
| that the cars, outfits, signage, etc. were particularly
| more dated than they had been in the 80s version.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Let's hope this paper doesn't just join the list of
| broken promises we were made in the 80's
| sbierwagen wrote:
| It's easy enough to build a hoverboard with spinning
| magnets over copper plate:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSheVhmcYLA
|
| As you can see, it's not actually that fun to ride. It
| hovers in _every_ direction, like standing on an ice
| cube. The reason ice skates and roller blades work is
| they have low friction only along one dimension, so you
| can still apply force to the ground along the normal
| vector.
| thebradbain wrote:
| Lexus appears to have done something like that using
| superconductors -
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhCcC2smGMI
|
| https://discoverlexus.com/stories/journeys-beyond-the-
| road/
| billiam wrote:
| I envision a future where maglev trains whisk you to ice
| fishing.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Ice cream freezers reach 248K, so if it's really the case,
| then sufficient devices are already mass produced.
| peteradio wrote:
| You'd have to clean out all the ice cream though.
| babypuncher wrote:
| Sounds like a delicious problem to solve.
| tanseydavid wrote:
| Happy to help with clearing out the Ice Cream...
| hypercube33 wrote:
| One would think with all of our crazy AI and supercomputers
| and quantum computers that a team would give it
| evolutionary goals of just trying simulations of molecular
| combinations to reach superconductivity. Sure, it'd be one
| thing to make it in a computer, and making the materials in
| the real world is quite another but I'm kind of shocked no
| one has come forward with something yet. I saw simulations
| of whole viruses running on a cluster of computers where
| they test drugs out and how they interact with the virus
| and simulated human cells so one would think its something
| with enough effort would be possible?
| j_maffe wrote:
| There's plenty of researchers working on material
| simulation on a molecular level. It's not easy to just
| search millions of possible combinations and accurately
| predict their behavior
| londons_explore wrote:
| I believe that the fundamental physical particle
| interactions are not yet well enough understood to make a
| precise simulation, even if you had a supercomputer.
|
| Ie. currently it can't be formulated as a search problem
| entirely on a computer.
| radarsat1 wrote:
| Isn't the whole point that it's something we might not
| predict from what we understand about the materials so
| far? Why would it be likely that a simulation would do
| better than theory at predicting unknown experimental
| results?
|
| You might hit on some interesting interactions between
| known properties that haven't been investigated but I
| would assume the real interesting results are from things
| we just don't know to model, or how to model.
| frostix wrote:
| This is done across many disciplines to try and aide in
| new discovery paths. Typically you're limited in exactly
| what you can simulate and often times solution candidates
| may be found that are impractical, currently impossible,
| or perhaps actually impossible to produce. Sometimes you
| can add search constraints to tie simulations together to
| narrow down such false positive solutions found but not
| always. Heck in some cases it's literally cheaper and
| more accurate to do the bench science no matter how
| alluring virtualized renditions may be.
|
| Most fields are still left with piles and piles of
| potential solutions to sort through. They often select
| candidates that are the cheapest and most practical to
| approach or they have high suspicion of success and
| pursue those. At the end of the day though we don't have
| full universe simulators at every scale we'd want, we
| have very specific area simulators within very specific
| bounds. You have to go out an empirically test these
| things.
|
| But this is and has already been going on for decades
| across most disciplines I've interacted with, they just
| weren't using DNN or LLMs at the time but domains are
| adopting these as well to leverage where feasible in the
| search process.
|
| I work with a variety of people interested in leveraging
| simulation and everyone wants to take the successes they
| see in LLMs or say RL from AlphaStar or AlphaGo and apply
| them in their domain. It's alluring, I get it, the issue
| is that we often lack enough real understanding in
| domains and the science isn't as airtight and people
| think it is, its too general or narrow, or on some cases
| we have good suspicion of how to build better more
| accurate simulations but there's not enough compute power
| or energy in the world to make them currently practical,
| so we need to take some tradeoffs and live with less
| accurate and detailed simulation which leads to
| inaccurate representations of reality and ultimately
| inaccurate solution suggestion candidates.
| colechristensen wrote:
| You far overestimate the state of the art, and even our
| basic understanding of what superconducting is
| mechanistically. Simulating a single atom, alone in the
| universe is still a struggle not quite achieved.
| hilbertseries wrote:
| Quantum computers are still not useful, fwiw.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| The lowest temperature a freezer can achieve is typically
| around -23 degrees Celsius (-9 degrees Fahrenheit).
| billyjmc wrote:
| To be clear, you mean a freezer meant to contain food.
| Laboratory freezers can easily go lower without being
| remotely exotic (in design or construction).
| ahahahahah wrote:
| So a normal freezer is already sufficient? 250K is about
| -23 degrees celsius.
| raverbashing wrote:
| The joke used to go "Scientists in Alaska discover the
| first room-temperature superconductor" but that works as
| well
| mort96 wrote:
| Not only is 250 K achievable by dry ice; it's achievable
| with a normal home freezer!
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Jokes like that are going to get a lot of resistance. Oh
| well, time to amp it up.
|
| Best chart I could find. Looks like there's another at 250 K
| from 2019. But what I don't have here is the Temperature /
| Pressure / Timeline, though...? What is the Pressure in the
| article? Is it STP?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductivity#/media/File:.
| ..
| sanxiyn wrote:
| The article is STP. 250 K from 2019 in the linked image is
| "@ 170 GPa", as shown.
| belter wrote:
| That is 1,5 to 1,6 million times atmospheric
| pressure...Slightly impractical?
| ddlsmurf wrote:
| Yes that would take a blow hard who is _very_ strong.
| gorkish wrote:
| Aye; it's in diamond-anvil territory there. Still
| potentially useful, though there have been problems with
| replicating this experiment as well.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Was a joke, I didn't actually voted him down
| belter wrote:
| 250K is -23,15degC This post because, laziness is a
| science...
| Hugsun wrote:
| What in the post is false modesty?
|
| What is the pressures required for the effect? Are there other
| requirements that limit it's practical usage.
| nemo44x wrote:
| So, we're back?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > As for "possible", the behind-the-scene post makes it clear
| it is false modesty.
|
| It's not false modesty to withhold a conclusion that is
| unwarranted without more evidence. The last time this happened
| there was also "possible Meissner effect" that turned out to be
| diamagnetism.
|
| There are no downsides to being conservative until more
| evidence is acquired.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| >There are no downsides to being conservative until more
| evidence is acquired.
|
| That's true, but one upside here is that this is not from the
| guy at Rochester who already got burned twice for publishing
| false superconductor discoveries. This is at least a report
| that can't be dismissed immediately.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I don't know who you're referring to "from Rochester", but
| the excitement from last summer around LK-99 came from two
| South Korean researchers. Which, mind you, all turned out
| to be faulty interpretation of their data.
|
| To be clear, I don't mean to cast unnecessary shade on
| these current results, I'm just saying the sane and prudent
| thing to do, especially given LK-99's recent history, is to
| hold off on any champagne popping, and that appropriate
| restraint shouldn't be characterized as "false modesty".
| godelski wrote:
| > Which, mind you, all turned out to be faulty
| interpretation of their data.
|
| Which we should be critical of, but understandable, since
| that's one of the main reasons to publish (and why I
| think it is weird we say arxiv papers aren't peer
| reviewed. That was probably one of the most peer reviewed
| works in the last decade) and since we're all human.
| Science is full of mistakes, and is unsurprising when a
| lot of it is literally trying to do things that humans
| have never done before (much more to science than this
| too).
|
| What I thought was really cool about LK-99 is that it
| isn't too often that people get a first hand look at what
| goes on inside the science communities. An abnormal
| amount of attention and openness, but illustrative. Just
| not sure this is the takeaway people got. But I saw
| science working in action, and it was really cool.
| floxy wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranga_P._Dias
| wiz21c wrote:
| Extraordinary claim should be backed by extraordinary
| tests. So why do they publish if they're not 100%
| confident ? Why not wait to be certain ?
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > So why do they publish if they're not 100% confident ?
| Why not wait to be certain ?
|
| There are very good reasons to publish before one is
| "100% certain". It can get lots of other scientists to
| evaluate your information where they can try to reproduce
| it or poke holes in your theories. It just makes sense to
| do that with a tone of "We got some interesting
| results..." as opposed to what happened in the summer
| which was more like "We've made one of the biggest
| discoveries of mankind!!!"
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Yeah, there's a very good argument I've read from
| researchers that instead of papers we should be
| publishing continuously what our results are to encourage
| this early and often community interaction/feedback (ie
| more like code reviews). The reason it doesn't happen is
| publish/perish + needing to be first to publish (ie
| someone taking your work and beating you to the punch and
| getting all the credit).
| Retric wrote:
| Getting other people to inspect your work sounds great
| for you but it costs those people a time and money.
|
| So, the incentives for misuse are really high and the net
| result is that shortcutting the process is a net drag on
| progress. People remember the bigs stuff like FTL
| neutrinos, cold fusion, NK-99, etc but arguably this also
| shows up as part of the 'reproducibility crisis' in many
| fields.
| WhitneyLand wrote:
| It's not published, it's a pre-print on arxiv.
|
| That's one of the purposes of arxiv is to allow others to
| review or comment on the work.
| godelski wrote:
| > There are no downsides to being conservative until more
| evidence is acquired.
|
| There are, but I'd agree that there aren't downsides we
| should be concerned with. The downside is that if you're
| trying to publish the work that it can make it easier for the
| work to be rejected. I'd agree this is dumb, but it is a
| thing I've seen happen, and be not too uncommon. Just comes
| down to metrics: academics are judged by citations and number
| of papers published, thus papers are written to reviewers as
| opposed to peers (not necessarily the same thing, but assumed
| they are), also incentivizes flashy results to generate more
| publicity, or overselling the novelty of work (sometimes even
| by mistake). But otherwise I agree, and I think it should be
| encouraged to take a more tempered approach (I think it'll
| also really help build back social trust in sciences (again,
| small part of a larger pie)).
| gwern wrote:
| This is LK-99 derived? Now I'm even less interested. Because if
| you believe this one, you need to believe that despite LK-99
| being bogus, that somehow, trying to make a new LK-99 variant
| was lucky enough to find the one compound out of countless
| attempts that winds up working - as opposed to coming out of a
| completely different, still viable, line of research. Stranger
| things have happened in the history of science & technology...
| but not that many.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Yes this is LK-99 derived. (See the paper's reference 4 and
| 5.) Eh, of course it is unlikely LK-99 is bogus and this one
| is not, but then the correct conclusion to draw is that LK-99
| is not bogus?
| gus_massa wrote:
| Perhaps LK-99 is bogus, and they were triying to reproduce
| the result, they failed succesfully and they got another
| similar compound that is not bogus.
| gfodor wrote:
| That's possible but far less likely than the alternative
| explanation that either this is bunk too or LK-99
| contained signal that people dismissed due to a hole in
| our methodology.
| mort96 wrote:
| Wait how are all the flaws in the paper and all the failed
| reproductions of LK-99 and all the signs that LK-99 is just
| diamagnetism compatible with LK-99 being a proper
| superconductor?
| bandyaboot wrote:
| This would be a difficult to believe coincidence if
| diamagnetism and superconductivity were unrelated physical
| properties, but they are not.
| scythe wrote:
| The hard part is that people have already tried really hard
| to make and measure a superconductor in the LK-99 system,
| and these researchers have once again gotten close, but not
| succeeded. There is some precedent for this: one of the
| highest-temperature superconductors is two-dimensional iron
| selenide supported on strontium titanate, which
| superconducts at 100 K, while the bulk iron selenide
| superconductivity is a measly 8 K at normal pressure (38 K
| under pressure). At this point, the most plausible way that
| superconductivity could be occurring in the LK-99 system is
| if it's in a metastable or nanostructured (possibly two-
| dimensional) phase that doesn't like to or can't exist as a
| uniform bulk material.
| dash2 wrote:
| Translated with Safari, those posts are awesome:
|
| "The first law of superconductivity: stay away from theoretical
| physicists." What should I say, the rules are all used to be
| broken?
|
| I haven't been drunk for many years. Last Friday, I always
| stayed there to test and kept sending me photos and live
| broadcast the real-time measurement results. Every time I sent
| one, I couldn't help drinking a drink. I was directly broken. I
| was carried back by the students. It's embarrassing~~
| wolfi1 wrote:
| "possible" was also used in the Bednorz/Muller paper,
| "possible" is therefore an established term
| laserbeam wrote:
| 1. Here we go again, right?
|
| 2. Is this still a ceramic (therefore impossible to make into
| wires), right?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Stranded wire, yes. Rigid wire is possible. Think about it like
| iron plumbing or rigid electrical conduit.
| falcrist wrote:
| I feel like we're just describing a narrow bus bar.
| local_crmdgeon wrote:
| Isn't that approximately a wire?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Bars are a good guess, but the 3rd dimension should not
| matter. We could manufacture thin tile as the conductor,
| and PCB design would be done with superconducting Lego
| bricks.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Yes, it is a ceramic, but you CAN make cables out of it.
| Commonwealth Fusion Systems did, SuperOx sells them (they have
| deployed references), etc.
| floxy wrote:
| Second generation ceramic HTS is deposited in thin films on to
| flexible tapes:
|
| https://www.superpower-inc.com/Technology.aspx
|
| (scroll down for image of tape bending):
|
| https://www.fujikura.co.jp/eng/newsrelease/products/2061942_...
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Anyone feel this is going in circles?
| yinser wrote:
| To a non chemist it may look like it's going in circles. When
| you're not solving a bug and writing debug statements and
| throwing paint at the wall it looks like you're going in
| circles. Everything is going in circles until it isn't. Be
| optimistic!
| causal wrote:
| Exactly, just a long problem-solving loop.
| limaoscarjuliet wrote:
| ...and without any resistance! (sorry, could not stop myself)
| zamalek wrote:
| That's what functioning science looks like. Giving up the first
| time round is a sure-fire way to guarantee that RTP
| superconductors are _never_ found. How many non-functioning
| light bulbs did Edison invent before he made the one that
| worked?
| gosub100 wrote:
| I wish there was a journal that only published experiments that
| _have_ been replicated. That would save so much time for many
| of us who want to know what _is_ , and not what's _being
| tried_.
| shakezula wrote:
| Replication is great but it's not the only way science learns
| and it would be foolish to put that kind of limit on
| publishing your work.
| threeseed wrote:
| You should just wait until the research has been
| commercialised then.
|
| That way your time is not being wasted and the rest of us can
| continue to focus on disseminating knowledge as early and
| often as possible.
| gosub100 wrote:
| > disseminating knowledge as early and often as possible.
|
| "lie early, lie often", I mean, we have knowledge to
| disseminate. Whether it's true or not? Who cares, Gotta get
| grants for our department!
| crakenzak wrote:
| That sentiment is a normal side effect of having exposure to
| the research process (because stuff is being published) instead
| of just the outcome.
|
| Also, remember that this just needs to work _once_ for our
| world to completely change!
| sylens wrote:
| It's not a loop, it's a spiral
| ziofill wrote:
| 250K is -23C, or -9F, I.e. like a cold winter day. That's really
| almost room temperature!
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| Compared with the working temperature of NMR magnets (4K)[1],
| it _is_ room temperature! It's not STP (standard temperature
| and pressure, 0C/1atm), yet, but maybe soon!
|
| [1] https://www.indstate.edu/cas/chem_phys/filling-nmr-magnet
| margalabargala wrote:
| > It's not STP (standard temperature and pressure, 0C/1atm
|
| Nit: STP is 20C/1atm, not 0C/1atm.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| Nit's nit: depends on the defining body, IUPAC is 0C, NIST
| is 20C (as per wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sta
| ndard_temperature_and_press...
| margalabargala wrote:
| Huh, today I learned. In chem in college I was just
| taught 20C.
| stavros wrote:
| Now you're nistpicking.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| It depends on where you live.
|
| Texas disagrees that -9 F is almost room temperature, though my
| freezers get that cold sometimes.
| goda90 wrote:
| The fact that you have a relatively cheap, small and
| efficient device in your home that reaches that temperature
| is what makes -9F significant.
| partomniscient wrote:
| On a planet undergoing global warming.
| itishappy wrote:
| While it's a lot for the planet as a whole, 2 or so degrees
| is trivial in these contexts. This discovery would raise the
| available temperature range of high temperature
| superconductors by 157 degrees K.
| aqme28 wrote:
| What's important is what you can use to cool it. Using helium
| to cool traditional superconductors is expensive and bulky. If
| we can cool superconductors with small Peltier coolers or your
| traditional fridge setup, that's a huge advantage.
| Havoc wrote:
| What encourages me on this is that we just need a single instance
| to pan out. Just one. And I get the sense that we're getting
| closer each year.
| jmward01 wrote:
| Until Anton Petrov does a video on this it isn't real.
| hinkley wrote:
| Hello wonderful people.
| jmward01 wrote:
| That line is like "Don't Panic". He sets a great tone for his
| videos.
| darklycan51 wrote:
| He really has become my source to go for most science papers
| lol, then after that its PBS guy and sometimes Sabine although
| I don't usually go to her stuff for 100% accuracy or them
| trying to at least
| turing_complete wrote:
| I want to believe. I really do.
| ocschwar wrote:
| The implications are so profound that any hint at this sort of
| thing makes otherwise rational people go completely bonkers.
|
| Myself included.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Imagine humanity liberated to such lengths. Sickness, poverty,
| energy, travel, entertainment - all for cheap and in abundance.
| Pray this is real!
| bmer wrote:
| Yeah, no. That's not going to happen even if we discovered
| room-temperature superconductors.
|
| The simple reason is that few of humanity's "ills" have to do
| with scarcity of anything but knowledge, motivation, and
| kindness.
| bordercases wrote:
| Uncentralizable energy overproduction would help.
| bongripper wrote:
| There have been scientific breakthroughs throughout human
| history and none of them "liberated" humanity in regards to
| sickness, poverty, energy, travel, entertainment. Why should
| this one now be different? There will always be sickness and
| poverty in a capitalist system that is built on the
| exploitation of others to sustain itself. During capitalism,
| medical and technological advances such breakthroughs might
| bring will always disproportionately benefit the rich.
| Sickness, poverty at least could already be "solved
| problems", as some people I think say, if not for class
| injustice in a system that depends on inequality to function.
| psychlops wrote:
| You write as if there is any alternative to capitalism that
| isn't far, far worse. It is truly the height of luxury to
| throw stones at the system that enabled the current wealth
| of the world.
| fooker wrote:
| It has.
|
| Out modern standard of living is significantly better than
| ..say.. 800 years ago purely because of industrialization.
| troyvit wrote:
| If you agree that we'll always be mortal then there will
| always be sickness, etc., even without capitalism, and in
| fact this breakthrough (if it is one) didn't originate in a
| capitalist system.
|
| With that in mind, liberation is a means, not an end. When
| I think of it that way I see great progress. Here are 2
| examples:
|
| - Sickness: Fluoridation reduces enamel caries in adults by
| 20%-40%. "Tooth loss is no longer considered
| inevitable".[1]
|
| - Poverty: The number of humans living in extreme poverty
| has never been lower[2]
|
| I could keep going but I think you get the point. I agree
| that we have serious problems in the world, and many of
| them are getting worse, but in terms of health and wealth,
| humans as a whole have never had it better. Some of that
| might actually be _due_ to capitalism, or at least
| Democracy, which has a hard time existing without it.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4841a1.htm
|
| [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-
| extre...
| hakkikonu wrote:
| here we go again
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Christ. 2024 really coming in hot, we get a 7.6 magnitude
| earthquake on day 1, bombings killing over 100 people on day 2,
| and this shit again on day 3.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| A key effect of exponential growth is that more things will
| happen each year.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Exponential curves usually prove to be sigmoid given enough
| time, so at least we can hope for that.
| codeulike wrote:
| Its nice that all the major players seem to recognise that its
| better to do this sort of science in the open.
| isthispermanent wrote:
| Why would the CCP allow this to get out of China? There's a huge
| competitive advantage to keeping this type of discovery to
| yourself.
| changoplatanero wrote:
| There's also a huge reputational advantage to be the first to
| announce the discovery.
| Eji1700 wrote:
| While i'm still extremely skeptical there's anything to this,
| especially with the total lack of professionalism in the
| initial "discovery", I'm not sure something this big is within
| their ability to control, at least if they're not right on the
| cusp of it.
|
| This kind of science is almost inherently international, and I
| don't think they could possibly keep up "keeping quiet" all the
| potential successes.
|
| That said, if there was one, I do think they'd at least try and
| fail.
| kkzz99 wrote:
| China filed more IP than rest of world combined in 2022. There
| is no reason to keep it secret with IP-Laws and Patents.
| https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202312/12/WS6577b803a31040ac...
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| 99% of these patents are bogus
| earthnail wrote:
| I don't think the CCP gets this stuff or its importance.
| parl_match wrote:
| It's actually really hard to keep discoveries like this secret
| or restricted. The real value worth protecting often is how to
| manufacture and mass produce.
|
| The nuclear bomb is a perfect example: It's actually a very
| simple mechanism, and the steps needed to refine the materials
| and make the mechanism are extremely well documented. However,
| the capability to actually reliably and safely make it is quite
| difficult.
| dgrin91 wrote:
| Thats not really true about nukes. Some of the simple first
| ones (namely the 'gun model') were simple enough that you can
| just do it if you had the uranium (because the gun model is
| literally just slap a bunch of uranium into itself), but the
| efficiently & yield is low.
|
| If you want a real nuke today - the thermonuclear fusion
| bombs - you're going to be missing a lot of parts that aren't
| in the public documents.
| yongjik wrote:
| If the CCP forbids such announcements, young ambitious Chinese
| scientists will decide that they should get out as soon as they
| have a chance, because otherwise they will never make
| international fame. Consider what that would do to Chinese tech
| in ten years.
| carabiner wrote:
| I think you mean CPC.
| andrewp123 wrote:
| Not this again.
| roomey wrote:
| Anyone got a link to a good forum tracking this?
| brucethemoose2 wrote:
| Possibly SpaceBattles again, once the hype heats up:
|
| https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-tempe...
|
| I really should peruse oldschool forums more... HN and a few
| subreddits are still nice, but most other social media feels
| like manipulative filler.
| penjelly wrote:
| got a bit frenzied by the last superconductor drop, gonna sit
| this one out
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