this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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What does a room temperature super conductor allow us to do?
It would allow us to transfer electricity with virtually no loss of energy.
What does it mean? More efficiency? No heat generated?
Iirc (and as an extreme novice) superconductors allow for transfer of incredible amounts of energy with little to no loss, but require extreme supercooling to do so. A superconductor that doesn’t need that cooling would allow super-efficient energy transfer with very little to no cooling needed, meaning the overhead costs are reduced dramatically.
This would be a wonder technology if proven to be true, but my understanding is most of the rest of the world is highly skeptical at the moment. It’s like having your cake and eating it too.
I’d say it’s more like simulating the best tasting cake ever in a computer, then telling everyone else to go bake it.
Hopefully someone can figure out a process to create the material in real life (then hopefully it’s durable and eventually economical to produce).
Afaik they did build it in real life, and the paper in fact is about the process for manufacturing it, not just about the properties or simulations.
People have replicated the simulations so far, but are still working on replicating the manufacturing process, as it has low yeild and some variability apparently
The problem with that paper as I understand it is that the writer was recently outed for making many false claims in his research.
Interesting I hadn't seen that. Do you have a source I could check out? There's six authors so it'd help figure out what you're referring to
Most scifi movie things you can think of would be on the table.
Warp drive?
Artificial gravity?
Time travel?
Maybe (or at least an albecuire drive)
Maybe
Probably not
Also some more "basic" things like cheap MRI without requiring helium (which we are running out of), cheap and easy magnetic levitation (more available high-speed trains)
Last I checked, alcubierre drive still requires negative mass, which is not a thing. Time travel and artificial gravity are still theoretically impossible.
Yeah artificial gravity I was thinking more along the lines of faking it via magnetism.
Albecuire drive I was just wrong about, you're right it's not a maybe it's a nearly 100% no lol.
Sorry just excited.
Albecuire drive is basically science fiction. If it's actually possible we won't be seeing it any time soon unless we find a crashed ship on Mars or something.
no
no
no
this thing would enable very strong superconducting magnets to work without cryogenic cooling. so, portable MRIs, better maglev, maybe perhaps easier fusion.
another interesting property is that resistance is zero. that means that you can transfer energy losslessly, saving some 10% of it this way. or you can make coils of this thing and charge/discharge them as needed, but this time without cooling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_magnetic_energy_storage
Way more efficiency, almost no heat generated. Quantum computers in your pocket. No need for fans in computers anymore, even for supercomputers. Way more efficiency at sending electricity long distances. Things like maglev trains and fusion reactors and MRI machines can use superconductors without needing to keep the temp at negative 450 F. Cheap MRIs mean accessible, inexpensive MRIs for all. The list goes on and on.
Yep. You know how hot your phone gets when charging? Or how hot a playstation gets when gaming for hours at a time?
That's due to heat-loss generated by the circuits. Superconductors would allow them to run much cooler generating essentially zero heat. Which means they can run more efficiently or faster without the need for larger heatsinks or complicated expensive cooling systems.
This is huge if true.
superconductors do nothing to make batteries or CMOS more efficient
And faster computers
Yes, because less heat. So we can crank it higher with no drawbacks. (Simplified reasoning I dont know a lot about circuit boards)
nah, you get there by using better materials in semiconductors manufacturing and more importantly better designs overall
No iy wouldn't. You still have limits to how much current can it can transfer. I don't know what happens when you reach the limits, but I know they exist. I also know the papers are claiming the limit is low, but I.have no idea what low means (I saw a.number but I can't read it)
Potentially? Fusion. Superconducting magnets to keep plasma away from the walls.
This is further down the line, but it's one of the key potential applications.
So what do you recon? 30 years away?
Ok now you're just being hurtful :(
If the claims are true and we can make it cheap enough... Change all electronics. You know all the fans in your computer? That's because heat is radiating off the silicon causing wasted power and limiting the amount of transistors possible based on cooling available.
All of our power lines(especially the long distance ones) are high voltage because of power loss in the copper, that's why there are local transformers in your neighborhood (these failing are a common cause of neighborhood black outs).
Want a electric car with high efficiency? Alot of heat is wasted by the copper windings in the motor. That goes away and range would increase dramatically.
Again this is all assuming the claims are legit and we can manufacture it at a decent price.
There are a lot of subtle things that are enabled too. Superconductors can store energy, because current going trough a superconductive loop doesn’t dissipate due to heat. You can use that to store energy in a battery or memory cell. Superconductors are at the heart of some of the most sensitive sensors. They can detect single photons for quantum optics, very sensitive changes to magnetic fields that enable more portable MRIs, ultra sensitive RF detectors. I think those will make a lot more immediate impacts.
Currently superconductors require extremely cold temperatures (not just freezing, but extreme subzero freezing temps) - this makes their use cases extremely limited as it is expensive to keep them cold enough.
The discovery of a room-temperature superconductor, would revolutionize energy transmission, transportation, electronics, medical imaging, and scientific research. It could lead to highly efficient power grids, faster trains, improved medical diagnostics, advanced electronics, and more energy-efficient technologies across industries, with potential benefits for renewable energy, space exploration, and fundamental physics understanding.