Room-Temperature Superconductor Replicated
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_applications_of_...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S277283072...
But we already have liquid nitrogen superconductors and they aren't used in MRI machines. I think the reason is something-something current density something - that they aren't suitable for that particular use for some other reason.
1. Superconductors that retain their properties above -190C but not much higher. It is more probable scenario and would be a huge win on its own.
2. Superconductors at -23C. This ones obviously doesn't need liquid gasses to operate, and so would be even more revolutionary (more compact, cheaper and efficient). But it is unlikely (to me) that we can see such a techlogical leap in one go, without first finding something that works between -23 and -190.
And MRI which can be cooled with a conventional electric freezer would cost order of magnitude less, probably. Which mean it could be deployed even in the rural regions and underdeveloped countries, like some x-ray machine today (it is more complex tool of course, this was a metaphor).
So that's the gist of it, reducing the infrastructure costs significantly. And the interesting thing about diagnostic healthcare is that their potential market is a perfect circle of all humans on the planet. The maximum possible market, because we all get old, ill and die eventually. All need better diagnostics, but not all needs a new car or new computer or new gun, or new chat application.
Discussion here yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38853706
There's no reason to believe room-temperature superconductivity is impossible or hard.
It could end up being trivially easy in the end.
https://www.eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
If not, then there is no reason to believe room-temperature superconductivity is impossible or hard.
That does not follow. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Not knowing a reason is not evidence, and saying so is not declaring evidence of absense.
It's perfectly correct to state that there is no reason, if as of time of speaking there is no known reason. No known reason today IS no reason. If you discover a reason tomorrow, then tomorrow it would no longer be correct to say there is no reason.
For it to be wrong to say "there is no reason to think it will be impossible" you would have to have some theory that suggests it will end up being impossible. Do you know of any such theory? For instance, is there a math argument that prevents it because regardless of the chemistry or process or pressures or temperatures or electric fields etc, it would require electrons or something to travel faster than the speed of light, or would somehow produce more energy than it consumes, or something like that? Even if it hasn't been proven experimentally, is there any such theory at all or any basis for proposing it?
Without something like that, then it is in fact a plain true valid consistent statement that "there is no reason to think it will be impossible"
That does not preclude that we may end up discovering it's impossible, or even before that we may end up thinking up a theory that will end up suggesting it will end up being impossible.
We don't have a theory suggesting it is possible either. We don't even have a theory explaining how superconductors actually work upon which we could ground claims like, "absent very surprising unknown physics, current physics suggests this is possible".
And the evidence hinting at the contrary is not easily dismissed: we've known about superconductors for over a century and we still don't have a complete theory for how and why they work, and all previous discoveries have barely moved the needle on temperature. LK-99 was the first hint of possibly even approaching room temperature and pressure, and it was clearly wrong. This most recent round is almost certainly also wrong.
This situation is simple: we have yet to see a room temperature, ambient pressure superconductor. There are two possible explanations for this observation: either such superconductors are possible and we have not yet discovered how to make them, or they are not possible and we have not yet discovered why.
How do you take this and then infer that "there is no reason to think they are impossible"? That simply does not follow, for there is a reason to think they are impossible per the above two possibilities: we have seen no evidence that they are possible and since we don't understand how superconductors work, room temp superconductors might actually be impossible to construct.
Edit: let's just cut to the heart of the matter, "there is no reason room temp superconductors are impossible" is a proposition about reality, that, among all possible knowns and unknowns, there exist no reasons entailing their impossibility. This far exceeds our knowledge of reality and superconductors specifically. It is simply incorrect to make this claim at this time, at least until such a thing has been created.
My correction was that they should say, "there is no known reason ...", which is instead a proposition about our state of knowledge, and is the correct description of the state of things.
Carry on mystic wanderer.
Until then, there is no reason.
My correction was that you should say, "there is no known reason ...", which is instead a proposition about our state of knowledge. This is a correct and accurate claim.
To me, the amount of research into it over decades, plus the current lack of reproducible results, is prima facie evidence that it is at least hard.
Journalists: Superconductor confirmed!!
Scientist: What? No! My research is useless if taken out of context!
Journalists: Scientist says his research into superconductors is useless!
Statisticians: German GDP decreased slightly in Q3.
Journalists: Germany in recession due to only producing last century technology.
A truck driver in middle Nebraska: I switched to an electric truck and it costs me 30 minutes extra per day due to charging.
Journalists: Electric vehicles are costing our workforce millions of hours per year.
These guys claim -23C SC which is insanely harder than even non-existent -196C SC. I think this story will be debunked pretty fast, just like every other one before.
What do you mean? Copper oxide superconductors are known and made for more than 30 years.
But my point was not about the old inventions, but about this new PCPOSOP material. Researchers claim an insane jump to -23C (maybe) superconductor which is highly suspicious on it's own. It's like some researchers will claim they have discovered some material with a melting point of +10000C at 1 atmosphere. Sure, maybe. But the fact that materials with melting points between +4000C and +10000C are missing is super suspicious.