LK-99 and the Future of Superconductors

Introduction

Imagine a futuristic utopia where you commute to your dead-end job on a magic levitating hover train, then hop on your hoverboard to meet up with your friends to make TikToks using Android phones that have nearly unlimited battery power, zero heat production, and use quantum chips that are a billion times faster than your current phone. That future may not be as far off as you think if we're to believe the South Korean scientists who recently claimed to have discovered a room temperature ambient pressure superconductor known as LK-99. If it turns out to be true, this would easily be the greatest scientific discovery of the 21st century. The only caveat, though, is that it might be total BS.

The Claim

South Korean scientists recently released two non-peer-reviewed papers, and scientists around the world are currently racing to reproduce their results. To understand why this is such a big deal, we need to stop pretending that we know what a superconductor is. A regular conductor is just a material that allows electricity or electrons to flow through it, like aluminum in high voltage transmission lines or copper wires in your house, gold and silver if you're a baller, or even ionized gas like fluorescent light bulbs. Not to mention, salt water is a good conductor. The problem is that as electrons flow through these metals, they meet some resistance, and that resistance causes heat. That's why our computers need fans and heat sinks, and why power lines need to run at very high voltages. It's really not ideal.

What is a Superconductor?

Superconductors are materials that can transfer electricity with zero resistance. That sounds awesome, but the problem is that they only work in super cool temperatures, like approaching absolute zero, or under extreme pressure, like Ocean Gate Titan pressure. That makes them nearly useless for all practical applications with a few exceptions, like highly specialized MRI machines. They also have interesting magnetic properties. Type 1 superconductors expel all magnetic fields when transitioning to a superconducting state, which is known as the Meisner effect. Type 2 superconductors don't completely expel magnetic fields and can operate at relatively higher temperatures, which makes them more suitable for practical applications today.

LK-99: The Game Changer

LK-99, if it's even legit, would completely change the superconductor game because it operates at room temperature with ambient air pressure. Surprisingly, cooking this stuff up isn't that difficult. You just take some lead oxide and some lead sulfate, heat it at 725 degrees Celsius for 24 hours, and that should give you some lanarkite. Then create some copper phosphide with a vacuum, mix them together, and heat them up, and now you've got LK-99. It's surprisingly simple, and the next 48 hours will be really interesting to see if other cooks can actually get this recipe to work.

Potential Applications

The practical use cases for such a material are impossible to understate. Electronics will become faster and more efficient, medical tech would become cheaper and more accessible. It could open the door to things like quantum computing and frictionless transportation and dramatically improve energy efficiency to the point where politicians don't need to feed us bugs to make the weather better.

Skepticism and Reality Check

Before you get too excited and start investing all your money on levitating train stocks, many smart people out there are highly skeptical of this paper. By comparison, the highest temperature superconductors of today operate at negative 20 degrees Celsius and require pressures of 25 million PSI. There's already a rabbit hole of drama surrounding the paper, like it looks like it may have been uploaded without everyone being on board, which might suggest some infighting between researchers. Just recently, another scientist had his paper taken down that had also claimed to discover a room temperature superconductor. Everyone wants to be the next Albert Einstein, and in rare cases, people might cherry-pick data or outright lie to get that clout.

Conclusion

However, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for LK-99 because I promised my bro a lambo for new year, and I really can't let them down again. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one.

Disclaimer: The features mentioned in this blog post are based on initial reports and are subject to further scientific validation.

Sources:

• MSN