[d1str0]

Assuming they discovered a low cost, room temperature, room pressure, superconductor, there are many HUGE technological advancements that can be made that would impact your daily life.

Possibilities include improved battery longevity in all devices(probably in an order of magnitude), low friction transport improvements (ie. cheaper high speed rail), and faster and higher bandwidth wired connections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_applications_of_...

[cogman10]

> improved battery longevity

No

> probably in an order of magnitude

Absolutely not.

> Low friction transport improvements

This material is superconductive at 110K (-163C). Not exactly usable for transport applications.

> faster and higher bandwidth wired connections.

Absolutely not, resistance has no impact on bandwidth.

I've seen variations of this comment on hacker news. Superconductors are not magic dust to make things better. They are conductors with 0 resistance. There are certainly applications for that (see the wiki you linked) but like all things based in reality those are all a lot more muted and probably not possible with the current materials.

You are getting excited about the possibility of wires. There are certainly cool things you can do with a nice wire, but it's still a wire. You can't store power much with it, It's too big to make logic circuits with, and applications (like levitating a train) require too many amps for our poor wire to remain a special wire. (Most super conductive materials lose conductivity when amps are too high).

[snitty]

>and applications (like levitating a train) require too many amps for our poor wire to remain a special wire. (Most super conductive materials lose conductivity when amps are too high).

I was wondering if there was a current limit on superconductors.

1) Is there any understanding as to why superconductivity breaks down at higher amperage? 2) If so, is there any explanation as to why that doesn't require a PhD in physics?

[cogman10]

> Is there any understanding as to why superconductivity breaks down at higher amperage?

This is a good read [1]

> As long as the induced magnetic field at the edges is less than the critical field, the material remains superconducting, but at higher currents, the field becomes too strong and the superconducting state is lost. This limit on current density has important practical implications in applications of superconducting materials – despite zero resistance they cannot carry unlimited quantities of electric power.

Tl;Dr (and probably wrong) as current flows through any conductor it creates a magnetic field. In superconductors when that magnetic field gets too strong it impedes current from being able to flow. A little like a traffic wave [2]. Everything works fine so long as there's enough space between cars to allow for them to speed up and slow down, but as the density of the cars increases if someone slows down that has a reverberating effect down the chain.

The magnetic field on a superconductor in turn induces a current on the conductor in the opposite direction.

Here's a video discussing some of the implications of this effect in a way that seems counter intuitive :) [3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_field

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_wave

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI_X2cMHNe0

[P_I_Staker]

as always the smart comment, ignore ant, them all

[carabiner]

No I mean why is this "huge" when each time that's happened it's been deflated within 12 hours:

- initial LK-99 paper upload on Arxiv: HUGE, then it's probably nothing until replication (waiting)

- DFT release: HUGE, then probably nothing (DFT has poor predictive power)

- 110K SC: HUGE, then ... ?

In every case it's been the laymen saying HUGE, then the experts saying it's probably insignificant. Then the laymen settle on what the experts said.

[throwanem]

Derek Lowe is a layman? I grant his specialism doesn't precisely match the field, but it's easily close enough I'd expect him to be able to smell bullshit on this if there was any, and his latest "In the Pipeline" suggests much more the scent of roses.

[whimsicalism]

Derek Lowe is saying 'this is maybe possible', commentators on Hacker News are saying 'this is practically a done deal, and here are the implications'

[wllye]

Just temper your expectations a bit and don't get hyped up by people on the internet. All of these are exciting developments, but no one is going to know the truth of it until you have multiple independent confirmations in one direction or another. No single piece of evidence is going to be convincing unless it comes from one of the big labs, and they're unlikely to publish quickly because they're going to wait until they have to k solid proof.

As someone with experience working on superconductors, the DFT results and this paper are exciting because they show that at the very least this is likely a new class of superconducting materials at least as good as the current industrial ones. Knowing that the authors are on to something and that the initial claims aren't totally nuts is exciting and fun to post about, but it'll take time to be sure about any of this.

[norturnn]

As someone who has worked on superconductivity I'd say that all of these are all potentially HUGE, but meaningless individually because they require experimental replication. They point to at minimum a new class of high temperature superconductors at least as good as current industrial ones. To know if it's truly transformative or not though we'll need multiple confirmations from big name labs. That's going to take time, so this trickle is exciting but won't mean much until the dust settles.