• AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A group of researchers kicked off a frenzy in late July when they published a set of papers about the discovery of LK-99 and called it “a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind.”

    If you’ve patented it, it’s incalculable value essentially,” says Chris Grovenor, professor of materials at the University of Oxford and director of the Centre for Applied Superconductivity.

    Grovenor points out that the researchers didn’t perform a heat anomaly test that’s standard for major laboratories studying these kinds of materials.

    “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.

    After Lawrence Berkeley materials scientist Sinéad Griffin posted her own analysis on Twitter with a GIF of Barack Obama dropping a mic, other people interpreted the results as evidence that LK-99 might actually work as a superconductor.

    A big discovery in the 1980s led to superconductors that could work at higher temperatures than before, but it took longer to find real-world applications in part because the materials are brittle ceramic.


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