Breaking News Room Temperature Superconductor LK-99

[strunkenwhite]

The physical strengths/weaknesses of this, if it's THE THING, will be key to it's usage.

Well, if this is merely the first discovered example of a whole class of similar materials, it remains to be seen how many structural strengths/weaknesses are shared across the class.

 

[Terthna]

Another possibility is that some corporation could get the government to the technology declared unsafe, to keep the inventors from monetizing it until the patent expires; at which point, said corporation will start selling it themselves with one or two minor alterations. That actually happened to a relative on my mother's side, who invented the first forced air electric furnace.

 

[Abhorsen]

Another possibility is that some corporation could get the government to the technology declared unsafe, to keep the inventors from monetizing it until the patent expires; at which point, said corporation will start selling it themselves with one or two minor alterations. That actually happened to a relative on my mother's side, who invented the first forced air electric furnace.

That's incredibly unlikely with something of this magnitude, and any government that does do this will be left in the dust by other governments.

Just wave around 'better missiles' around the American government, and they'll stop complaining.

Look, I hate government, and think worse of them than most anyone on the site. I don't think they'll be this dumb.





An observation of zero resistance has been done!

 

[Typhonis]

Let's see if it is repeated.

 

[Abhorsen]

From what I'm seeing, it seems like they got it working up to 110 Kelvin (about -160C/260F). Also important is that this is a whole new strategy forward, with viable ways to improve this method. For one thing, you could now run this under liquid nitrogen and get it working.

 

[Doomsought]

From what I'm seeing, it seems like they got it working up to 110 Kelvin (about -160C/260F), which is a huge, many times improvement over previous options (think like 4 K when 0K is absolute zero, or under huge pressure (hundreds of Gigapascals). Also important is that this is a whole new strategy forward, with viable ways to improve this method. For one thing, you could now run this under liquid nitrogen and get it working.

We've has stuff that would work under liquid nitrogen temperatures, even reproduced and levitated by hobbyists, but it is too brittle to be worked into rings to form superconducting magnets.

 

[Abhorsen]

We've has stuff that would work under liquid nitrogen temperatures, even reproduced and levitated by hobbyists, but it is too brittle to be worked into rings to form superconducting magnets.

Yeah, I looked it up more, and you are correct. Deleted that part.

 

[Bacle]

Ok, so it's been explained to me that this compound is related to lead apatite compounds.

Which is probably why it has taken so long to find; not many people purposely experiment with new lead compounds/forms as it is, due to the metal's toxicity.

So we may be getting essentially a doped-lead compound superconductor out of this, which means that the catch with this superconductor is the same catch all lead compounds have; don't get it into your body if you can help it, and disposal/recycling of it may have the same restrictions as normal lead recycling.