Imagine riding a levitating train at speeds of 14,000 miles per hour — cutting the trip from Latest York to Los Angeles to simply 20 minutes.
A team of South Korean researchers say the science fiction fantasy is closer to reality than ever before with what they claim is a revolutionary breakthrough in superconductors.
The researchers published their findings July 22 — immediately sending the close-knit scientific community right into a viral lather.
“We consider that our recent development can be a brand-new historical event that opens a recent era for humankind,” the researchers wrote.
Superconductivity requires extremely low temperatures, making it costly to copy on a mass industrial scale.
Their paper, which was not peer-reviewed, claimed they were capable of synthesize the world’s first superconductor capable of conduct electricity at room temperature and ambient pressure from a lead-based material often called LK-99.
“If it wasn’t clear why this can be a big deal, if successful LK-99 can be a watershed moment for humanity easily on-par with the invention of the transistor,” engineer Andrew Cote wrote on his X profile.
Korean researchers claim a breakthrough within the seek for a superconductor at room temperature.Getty Images/iStockphoto
Nonetheless, skeptics quickly poured cold water over their claims, while others raced to duplicate their findings — with little success.
“I take [the announcement] with the proverbial grain of salt, though this particular grain seems closer to the dimensions of a rock,” Jens Koch, a physics professor at Northwestern University, told The Each day Beast.
“That is an area of research where breakthrough claims have been made up to now after which needed to be retracted because they didn’t delay under scrutiny.”
Koch added: “A few of my colleagues have already voiced concerns in regards to the data presented by the South Korean group.”
“I’ll consider it if or once I see verification.”
The distant possibility LK-99 could provide an enormous leap for mankind spiked the stock price of firms conducting research into superconductors. American Superconductor Corp. saw its shares increase by nearly 130% in the times after the South Koreans published their paper.
A superconductor is capable of conduct an electrical current with virtually zero resistance — thus allowing electricity to flow through it with none energy loss.
Korean researchers claim they were capable of achieve superconductivity at room temperature using LK-99.Twitter/@altryne
In line with Cote, achieving superconductivity at room temperatures would result in a revolution in “generation, transforming and distribution of energy.”
“Room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductors would produce extremely strong magnetic fields with very high efficiency,” making energy low cost and more available while reducing carbon footprint, in line with Cote.
Stable, room-temperature superconductors may very well be used to create those supersonic “maglev” trains, allow cargo ships to scale back fuel consumption and emissions, and improve the performance of aircraft and other industrial vehicles.
The Korean researchers claim they were capable of create a lead-based material often called LK-99.Twitter/@altryne
Microprocessors would have the ability to operate at extremely high speeds, thus improving data evaluation, complex simulations and artificial intelligence.
Nonetheless, don’t book those train tickets just yet.
Michael Norman, a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory, told Science magazine that the Korean researchers “come off as real amateurs.”
“They don’t know much about superconductivity and the way in which they’ve presented a number of the data is fishy,” he said.
