Just a word of caution: Non-peer reviewed, non-replicated, rushed-looking preprint, on a topic with a long history of controversy and retractions. So don't get too excited yet.
I would also like to know. Apparently there were some proofreading errors etc. Someone in reddit explained that rushing the publish might be explained by wanting to stake the claim and get the ball rolling on reproducing the results as fast as possible.
Reposting my comment from another thread to add a bit of context in case anyone’s curious.
So I read the paper, and here’s a tldr about how their material apparently gains its properties.
It is hypothesized that superconductivity properties emerge from very specific strains induced in the material. Hence why most of the discovered superconductors require either to be cooled down to very low temperatures, or to be under high pressures. Both shrink the material.
What this paper claims is that they have achieved a similar effect chemically by replacing some lead ions with copper ions, which are a bit smaller (87 pm for Cu vs 133 pm for Pb). This shrinks the material by 0.48%, and that added strain induces superconductivity. This is why it apparently works at room temperature — you no longer need high pressures or extreme cold to create the needed deformation.
Can’t really comment on how actually feasible or long-lasting this effect is, but it looks surprisingly promising. At least as a starting point for future experiments. Can’t wait for other labs’ reproduction attempts. If it turns out to be true, this is an extremely important and world-changing discovery.
Interesting and it wouldn't be a ceramic. Downside is that it is lead based. Not exactly good for the environment or very flexible without breaking. Lead doesn't make good wire.
Not thrilled that it is a lead alloy. Just when we are starting to get rid of all the lead in our communities, this would put it back as part of critical infrastructure everywhere...
As others have mentioned lead is still everywhere. All our combustion car batteries are still lead/acid batteries, but if what /u/[email protected] mentioned the paper claims is true, the method for inducing superconductivity in the metal could possibly be used to create other lead free ones.
The clains being made are extraordinary. i.e a cheap material that has a superconduction transition temperature 200 degrees kelvin above the cuprates at standard pressure
The fragility of this superconductive state makes me wonder if what theyre claiming to observe is an artifact (pathological science) rather than a real effect
The paper is "rough around the edges" i.e multiple proofreading mistakes and has undergone little apparent editing for quality
There is always room for pathological science. Especially when something like room temperature superconductors are the subject in question. A good researcher will try to find and test all the alternative hypotheses that they can. i.e contrast the cisplatin paper with fleischmann and pons' paper about cold fusion. This paper reminds me a lot more of the cold fusion paper than it does the cisplatin paper. Another example of a bad paper would be NASA's announcement of a microbe that used an Arsenic containing analog of DNA.
Sceptical because "revolutionary" discoveries like this always end up either being bogus or have some massive caveat that makes them effectively useless outside of very specific scenarios.
Thought I will be pleasantly surprised if proven wrong
I didn't read or watch the video yet, but if it works like the current superconductors, the magnetic fields will be repealed and cannot enter the superconductor.
However currently is it possible to make superconductors with impurities allowing the magnetic fields to enter (through the impurities) in the superconductor. This allow quantum locking / magnetic locking.
However as said above, you need a magnetic field. So either a permanent magnet or by generating one with electricity use.
Another interesting thing is that superconductors allow to store electricity for an indefinite amount of time. Like you put eletrcitiy in it and it will still be in it after 20+ years.
However it is not an infinite energy. If it generates work or it is extracted from there, it will dissipate. As the energy will be used up.
I think the question was "what's the purpose of posting this on Lemmy?" (not arXiv) because that does nothing for peer review but a lot for stirring laypeople's wild imagination.
I mean; that’s a sure fire way to have it all backfire isn’t it? When someone else tries to replicate it and it doesn’t work? And they all get called out for it being utter bullshit?
What is this absolute garbage take that scientists just making extraordinary claims for “prestige” or whatever? They’ll be laughed out of the profession if they’re intentionally lying in a paper.
Now, it could be that they think they’re on to something only to have it proven false for one reason or another (flawed experiment, incorrect hypothesis, unaccounted factors etc) but that’s more in line with how peer review works - it’s not the claim that makes you famous it’s the proof.
the critical field and critical current seem very low … This means you can't actually push big current through this thing (yet). You can't make a powerful magnet, and you can't make viable power lines
The method to produce this material as described in the related paper [1] is fairly simple and could be done at home with a $200 home metal melting furnace from amazon and the precursors (which also seem to be fairly standard easy to obtain metals)
Read this comment thread from SC researchers: <reddit link removed>
Lots of problems with the paper, they claim. It is not up to the standards of current SC research. One of them says Dias's work shows more merit than this.
The only drawback is that LK-99 is polycristalline... Levitating trains and computers, electronics, are a stretch as long as the material is not monocristalline.
no i know many of the applications, its huge if true! i understand that, but almost everything like this comes with trade-offs, and i was wondering if there are any here that would make it non-viable for some/all applications
Power cables are currently (heh) designed to operate below 90degC, because after this you get thermal runaway and the conductor melts. That's already within the operating range of this.
In amongst that discussion is a lot of reason to hope this will be better, several note that the researchers made a low quality sample "spongy crap" and that in other superconductors made at that quality are just as limited, only becoming useful when better quality samples are made
That "levitation" video is worthless: One edge of it is still resting on the magnet, and plain old steel screws will do that if you put them on a plain old speaker magnet. If they can't even manage to show actual levitation after claiming it, then I highly suspect the rest of the claims are just as invalid.
To be honest, this seems very sus to me. A big paper with only three authors?!
I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find the lab from which it has been published. It's almost there is no online presence. In another paper they put out along with it, they say that they show Meissner effect (levitating effect of a superconductor) and that a video is attached. I looked for the video but I wasn't able to find it. :/
That part isn't so unusual, especially in condensed matter, where labs can be relatively small. For example, the paper announcing the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in 1986 only had two authors (Bednorz & Müller).
I went down the rabbit hole of trying to find the lab from which it has been published.
For those who didn't look into the paper: They seem to work for a company called "Quantum Energy Research Centre, Inc.", which does sound a bit... woo-y to me. At least the third author seems to work at Korea University, which, according to Wikipedia, is relatively prestigious. Who knows, maybe the authors just can't be bothered to use Latex and didn't choose the name of the company or didn't put too much thought into it, but for the moment I'm also rather skeptical.
Yeah, in olden times sure. You can say a big paper like EPR paradox one, was written as only three people. These days, a lot of people would jump on a big paper since citations is the currency of research now.
They published another version with a longer list of authors. They published this one under three authors since that’s the maximum number you can split a Nobel prize between. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the real deal, but it means that the researchers sure think it is.
This... this is literally revolutionary if true. Has it been corroborated by other experiments? How certain are the results? How hard is it to mass produce this? This could literally be the breakthrough of the century in materials science here.
If this were true they wouldn’t have released this, they’d have released a room temperature and pressure superconductor and instantly become billionaires.
I can count on my hands the amount of times I've seen revolutionary room conditions superconductor papers, which may not be too many, but enough to quickly dismiss this especially because it looks really barebones