this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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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)
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.
And faster computers
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.
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)