This is not science fiction. Authors Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, Young-Wan Kwon have created the first Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor.
Superconductivity is a phenomenon in which certain materials exhibit zero electrical resistance and the expulsion of magnetic fields when cooled below a critical temperature.
Historically, superconductors were only known to operate at extremely low temperatures, close to absolute zero (0 Kelvin or -273.15°C). These are called conventional superconductors. However, in recent years, there have been discoveries of unconventional superconductors that can operate at higher temperatures, but they still require cooling to achieve their superconducting state.
Until now…what does this mean?
100 billion kWh of electricity are wasted on transmission losses each year in the US alone. That’s equivalent to 3 of our largest nuclear reactors running 24/7. Superconductivity enables lossless electricity transmission at high voltages and currents. According to the authors, the LK-99 material can be prepared in about 34 hrs with extremely basic lab equipment (a mortar & pestle, basic vacuum, and furnace). These results could replicate within days-weeks.
Nuclear fusion reactors rely on superconductors for plasma confinement. Modern designs use RBCO/YBCO superconductors cooled with LN2 or Liquid He, creating a huge temperature gradient and challenging operation. Ambient superconductors enable a whole host of new reactor designs.
Quantum computers use superconductors to preserve coherence in qubits. Small changes in temperature and pressure can cause the entire QC to fail during operation. Imagine a room temperature quantum computer on your desktop – now possible.
Superconductors might be the best batteries out there. Simply inject a current and keep it in the coil until you need it. Previously, too costly to maintain. Now, totally feasible.
Your iPhone won’t overheat when playing subway surfer with a youtube video in the corner anymore! Ultra-efficient computer chips will have 0 resistive losses during operation with superconductors. No need for cooling fans!!
About the Author
Uh, okay!
The laws of thermodynamics have now been re-written!
Which is why the heat pumps the Biden administration is pushing are 400 percent efficient.
Imagine that.
You put in a nickel and get back a dollar!
According to “following the science,” LK-99 is a compound of lead, copper, phosphorus and oxygen.
According to their scientific paper posted on the Cornell University website, titled, not surprisingly, “The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor,” the authors state that for the first time in the world, they have succeeded in synthesizing the room-temperature superconductor with a modified lead-apatite (LK-99) structure, and the superconductivity of LK-99 is proved with the Critical temperature (Tc), Zero-resistivity, Critical current (Ic), Critical magnetic field (Hc), and the Meissner effect.
According to them, the superconductivity of LK-99 originates from minute structural distortion by a slight volume shrinkage (0.48 %), not by external factors such as temperature and pressure, and the shrinkage is caused by Cu2+ substitution of Pb2+(2) ions in the insulating network of Pb(2)-phosphate and it generates the stress which concurrently transfers to Pb(1) of the cylindrical column resulting in distortion of the cylindrical column interface, which creates superconducting quantum wells (SQWs) in the interface, and the heat capacity results indicated that the new model is suitable for explaining the superconductivity of LK-99, the unique structure of which allows the minute distorted structure to be maintained in the interfaces, that being the most important factor so that LK-99 maintains and exhibits superconductivity at room temperatures and ambient pressure.
So, wow!
What an interesting time to be alive, as the laws, or what used to be the laws, anyway, of science are being totally rewritten, which reminds me of a TWEET on TWITTER by @POTUS, otherwise known as President Joe Biden, on September 1, 2022, where @POTUS told us as “there is nothing America can’t do if we do it together,” and reading this story, which defies the imagination, I guess that has to be true, because at one time, lead used to be an insulator, and now, it is a super conductor, and truly, who would have thought it back in the last century when I went to engineering school.
Now, it is true that in its pure form lead is indeed a conductor, but it is also true, or used to be true, anyway, that pure lead, having a free electron in its outermost shell, readily reacts with oxygen to form lead oxide, which does not have free electrons, so that due to the absence of free electrons in lead oxide, it is poor electrical conductor.
And back in the last century, it was also thought to be true that phosphorus, a non-metal, wouldn’t allow the electricity to pass through it because of the higher stability of the half-filled electrons in 2p orbital, which made phosphorus an insulator, and therefore, phosphorus used to be a bad conductor of electricity.
And now, thanks to Joe Biden, it, in combination with lead, oxygen, and copper, is now a superconductor at room temperature!
Who’d a thought it back when!
Will miracles never cease?
Not while Joe Biden is president, anyway!
And are we looking at a classic investor scam here to gull a lot of fools out there and part them from their money?
Thanks to the Cape Charles Mirror, we get to ask that question, and that takes us to a Reuters article titled appropriately “S.Korean experts seek to verify room-temperature superconductor claim” on August 3, 2023, where we find as follows, to wit:
SEOUL, Aug 3 (Reuters) – South Korean experts said on Thursday they would set up a committee to verify claims that a room temperature superconductor has been discovered, which has driven investor frenzy as well as peer skepticism since.
end quote
And ah yes, people, investor frenzy – get in there first to get a chunk of the action while the getting in is good, and when the stock skyrockets, and my goodness, with a discovery as good as this one, which has totally rewritten the laws of science and has obliterated the first and second laws of thermodynamics, it will have to, which is when you make your killing!
Let the good times roll!
But could it be a SCAM?
Let’s go back to Reuters to see what we can see:
The Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics, a group of experts, said in a statement on Thursday it had asked Quantum Energy Research Centre to submit samples in order to verify its researchers’ findings of a room-temperature superconductor material, made public last month on a website showing research before formal publication.
“There has been a lot of controversy over the authenticity of the reported results at home and abroad, and other claims are being added without being peer-reviewed,” the group said.
“Based on data from the two archived papers and the video made public, the materials … cannot be called room temperature superconductors at this point,” it added.
HUH?
WOT?
Is a bubble about to burst here, people?
Again, let’s go back to Reuters, to wit:
Superconductors, substances with no electrical resistance, are considered valuable as they can allow electrical currents to pass through without losing energy.
But the handful of materials discovered so far only exhibit superconductivity at extremely cold temperatures or high pressures, making them impractical for widespread use.
The group said organisations such as Seoul National University, Sungkyunkwan University, and Pohang University of Science and Technology would verify the findings if any sample is provided by Quantum Energy Research Centre, while member organisations are carrying out their own verification research.
The researchers that made the claim did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
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Big surprise there, people, isn’t it?
But what about the investor frenzy?
Let’s see what we can see, to wit:
Shares in the U.S., China and South Korea have gained since the claim of a practical superconductor was made public, as investors made early bets despite skepticism among some scientists.
The global frenzy had been further stoked after a Chinese university published a video replicating the experiment.
An index tracking Chinese superconductor-related stocks has surged since late July, when the South Korean researchers published their papers, rising as much as 22%, though it gave up a large chunk of those gains on Thursday.
Among these stocks were Jiangsu Etern Co and Western Superconducting Technologies which closed down 9.7% and 8.13% respectively on Thursday.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
If one lives long enough, and is observant, and keeps up with current events as one is supposed to do to be a responsible American citizen, as opposed to an indoctrinated moronic idiot like so many in Ameri9ca have become, because it is the easy way out, requiring no thinking whatsoever, one comes to realize that just because someone has a lot of money, and calls themselves an “investor,” it is in no way an indicator that they have a brain in their head as opposed to a bunch of mush or toxic sludge, and case in point is this “investor frenzy” over this LK-99, touted as a room temperature superconductor, which it is not.
If it is a superconductor, and the jury remains out on that, it is only so above 127 °C, or 260.6 °F, that according to an article in Nature 04 August 2023 titled “Claimed superconductor LK-99 is an online sensation — but replication efforts fall short – Social media is abuzz with chatter about the material, but some scientists are pushing back on the hype” by Dan Garisto where we are told as follows, to wit:
A Korean team’s claim to have discovered a superconductor that works at room temperature and ambient pressure has become a viral sensation — and prompted a slew of replication efforts by scientists and amateurs alike.
But initial efforts to experimentally and theoretically reproduce the buzzworthy result have come up short, and researchers remain deeply sceptical.
LK-99’s purported superconductivity drew immediate scrutiny from scientists.
“My first impression was ‘no.’” says Inna Vishik, a condensed matter experimentalist at the University of California, Davis.
“These ‘Unidentified Superconducting Objects’, as they’re sometimes called, reliably show up on the arXiv.”
“There’s a new one every year or so.”
Advances in superconductivity are often touted for their potential practical impact on technologies such as computer chips and maglev trains, but Vishik points out that such excitement might be misplaced.
Historically, progress in superconductivity has had tremendous benefits for basic science, but little in the way of everyday applications.
There’s no guarantee a material that is a room-temperature superconductor would be of practical use, Vishik says.
The first attempts to replicate LK-99, reported in the past days, have not improved the material’s prospects.
None of the studies provide direct evidence for any superconductivity in the material.
(The Korean team did not respond to Nature’s request for comment.)
Two separate experimental efforts by teams at the National Physical Laboratory of India in New Delhi and Beihang University in Beijing, reported synthesizing LK-99, but did not observe signs of superconductivity.
A third experiment by researchers at Southeast University in Nanjing found no Meissner effect, but measured near zero resistance in LK-99 at -163 °C (110 K) — which is far below room temperature, but high for superconductors.
Theorists have also entered the fray.
Several theoretical studies used a computational technique called density functional theory (DFT) to calculate LK-99’s electronic structure.
The DFT calculations suggest LK-99 might have interesting electronic features that, in other materials, have been associated with behavior such as ferromagnetism and superconductivity.
But none of the studies found evidence that LK-99 is a superconductor at ambient conditions.
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From the standpoint practical applications, on the assumption this is not a scam, looking at it based on mechanics of engineering materials, which subject is concerned with the physical characteristics of a material, this LK-99 appears to be a real loser, big-time, because it is hard but brittle, and breaks by fast fracture from crack propagation, which takes us to an excellent article in The Verge https://www.theverge.com/23820077/lk-99-superconductor-experts titled “The LK-99 ‘superconductor’ went viral — here’s what the experts think” by Justine Calma on Aug. 4, 2023, where we have as follows, to wit:
The building blocks for LK-99 raised some eyebrows, too.
Unlike many superconductors made from metal, it starts out as a nonconducting mineral.
“When you start with a rock, chances are you will end with a rock,” says Michael Norman, a distinguished fellow and former director of the materials science division at Argonne National Laboratory.
Doping the material with copper is supposed to be what transforms it, but it’s not clear where the copper is supposed to go and how it manages to transform the rock into a superconductor.
“This discovery is completely out of the blue,” says David Larbalestier, chief materials scientist of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory and professor at FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.
“I have no idea what the idea, frankly, behind doping this [mineral] with copper was.”
end quotes
So if you are a moronic idiot who is an investor with a lot of money you would like to lose, this LK-99 sounds like a sure bet.
If you are not a moronic idiot, perhaps this is something you would like to steer clear of.