A new material called LK-99 has been introduced as a superconductor with the ability to carry electricity at room temperatures without resistance. The material has gained popularity on Twitter, with many believing it could revolutionize everyday life by providing new technologies to address climate change and make levitating trains common. While superconducting materials already exist in certain applications such as MRI machines and quantum computers, they only exhibit their superconducting properties at extremely low temperatures, limiting their practical use.
The story began when a team of South Korean scientists, most of whom work for a small startup company, published two reports detailing their method for producing LK-99 and the measurements demonstrating its superconducting capabilities. They also shared a video showing a small sample partially levitating over a magnet, which they claimed proved the Meissner effect, guaranteeing zero magnetic field inside a superconductor.
Alex Kaplan, a physics graduate from Princeton University, discovered LK-99 on Hacker News and was astonished. He shared his excitement on Twitter, joining a group of LK-99 enthusiasts who have generated buzz on social media in recent days. However, most of these enthusiasts are not experts in the field. Kaplan, for instance, works as a coffee product manager.
Scientists studying superconductivity have remained skeptical. The data provided thus far is not sufficiently convincing, according to many experts. Sankar Das Sarma, director of the Condensed Matter Theory Center at the University of Maryland, pointed out that at the temperature claimed by the Korean scientists for LK-99 to become a superconductor, the electrical resistance drops but does not reach zero. The resistance of the material, which is composed of apatite mineral with some copper replacing lead atoms, is about 100 times higher than that of pure copper and other good conductors. The video evidence is also inconclusive, as non-superconducting materials like graphite can also exhibit partial levitation. The Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics has formed a panel to verify the findings.
The story began when a team of South Korean scientists, most of whom work for a small startup company, published two reports detailing their method for producing LK-99 and the measurements demonstrating its superconducting capabilities. They also shared a video showing a small sample partially levitating over a magnet, which they claimed proved the Meissner effect, guaranteeing zero magnetic field inside a superconductor.
Alex Kaplan, a physics graduate from Princeton University, discovered LK-99 on Hacker News and was astonished. He shared his excitement on Twitter, joining a group of LK-99 enthusiasts who have generated buzz on social media in recent days. However, most of these enthusiasts are not experts in the field. Kaplan, for instance, works as a coffee product manager.
Scientists studying superconductivity have remained skeptical. The data provided thus far is not sufficiently convincing, according to many experts. Sankar Das Sarma, director of the Condensed Matter Theory Center at the University of Maryland, pointed out that at the temperature claimed by the Korean scientists for LK-99 to become a superconductor, the electrical resistance drops but does not reach zero. The resistance of the material, which is composed of apatite mineral with some copper replacing lead atoms, is about 100 times higher than that of pure copper and other good conductors. The video evidence is also inconclusive, as non-superconducting materials like graphite can also exhibit partial levitation. The Korean Society of Superconductivity and Cryogenics has formed a panel to verify the findings.
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