Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing

wnose@kbin.social to Technology@kbin.social – 0 points – Superconductor Breakthrough Replicated, Twice, in Preliminary Testing
tomshardware.com

A tentative but less nebulous step toward superconductor-fueled electronics.

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The entire story surrounding this discovery is a scientific rollercoaster ride, with rogue scientists, updated papers, plus cloudy definitions and process descriptions within the paper that make replication efforts more difficult, and even a Russian soil scientist (and anime catgirl) deconstructing the original Korean paper to unveil the trademark levitation of the Meissner effect over her own kitchen counter.

I can't believe they just dropped all this without any explanation. XD

My working knowledge of this entire situation stems from this Substack post, which gives slightly more info than what you quoted and kind of explains the anime catgirl

I wonder if in 5 years from now we'll look back at this invention as one of the biggest breakthroughs in decades.

I hope so. Room temperature superconductivity would make so many things economically viable overnight...

can I get an ELI5 on why?

Super simple ELI5:

  • Electronics (computers/phones/laptops etc) work by running electricity through stuff ("conductors").

  • While moving, the electricity "bumps" into stuff on the way. That’s bad, and only the reason electronics get warm. Electric energy is turned into heat instead of doing its job.

  • In a _super_conductor, electricity does not bump into stuff. Everything works smoothly, no waste heat. Batteries would last longer. Heat damage would no longer be (as much) a concern. Basically, all-around better.

The warmest current conductor I’ve read about only worked at below -27 °C, I think, and needed huge pressure, like on the ocean floor. Others work at surface pressure but require even lower temps.

Benefits of safe, cheaply mass-produced, room-temperature, [EDIT: and workable] surface-pressure superconductors:

  • Massively better battery life of everything.

  • Much, much more efficient use of anything that needs electricity, reducing cost of everything that needs electricity.

  • Extremely efficient energy transfer (power lines etc can lose a lot of energy on the way), making electricity itself cheaper.

  • Some inventions are suddenly much more feasible (Maglev trains and hoverboards are examples I’ve seen mentioned, but don’t ask me about the science behind that.)

  • Electronics can become smaller, yet again. It would probably make Smartwatches and "Spatial Computing" devices more feasible.

EDIT: Based on one YT video, I’ll add that the material also needs to be able to worked into various forms and solid/stable enough not to crumble over time. Apparently, there are some technically great superconductors already, but they crumble apart or lose their superconductor status if electricity flows through them the wrong way, or something, making them useless.

Superconductors basically means you can run your PC's processor at 1% of its current energy draw. So now take a mobile phone processor, recreate it with superconductors, and you suddenly have a device that can do a massive amount of computations for years on a single AA battery

You aren't going to heat something to 127 °C with an AA battery.

Most people don't consider 127 °C to be room temperature.

"Room temperature" in this context means "above 0 °C".

Correct. So why are you concerned with it not working at well over boiling water temperatures? This is about a room temperature superconductor. 127 °C is not room temperature.