Possible Room Temperature Superconductor Achieved 264
TechkNighT_1337 sends news that surfaced on the Next Big Future blog, concerning research out of the University of Bengal, in India. The report is of a possible superconducting effect at ambient room temperatures. Here is the paper on the ArXiv. (Note that this research has not been peer-reviewed or published yet.) "We report the observation of an exceptionally large room-temperature electrical conductivity in silver and aluminum layers deposited on a lead zirconate titanate (PZT) substrate. The surface resistance of the silver-coated samples also shows a sharp change near 313 K. The results are strongly suggestive of a superconductive interfacial layer, and have been interpreted in the framework of Bose-Einstein condensation of bipolarons as the suggested mechanism for high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. ... The fact that the results described above have been obtained from very simply-fabricated systems, without the use of any sophisticated set-up and any special attention being given to crystal purity, atomic perfection, lattice matching, etc. suggests that the physical process is a universal one, involving only an interface between a metal and an insulator with a large low-frequency dielectric constant. We note in passing that PZT and the cuprates have similar (perovskite or perovskite-based) crystal structures. This resemblance may provide an added insight into the basic mechanism of high-temperature superconductivity."
Wait until it has been repeated. (Score:5, Insightful)
until the experiment has been repeated by someone else, I'm not holding any hope.
...really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cold Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
This smells of Cold fusion [wikipedia.org]. I was 12 when that scandal erupted and I'm *still* recovering from the disappointment that we hadn't just entered the age of flying cars. This time I think we're better off saving our excitement until the experiment has been repeated.
Re:Someone didn't get the memo (Score:5, Insightful)
If it superconducts at room temperature, trust me, nobody's going to give a crap what it's made from.
Re:Someone didn't get the memo (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, silver isn't -that- expensive. Especially when we're just speaking of a layer of the stuff.
Re:Wait until it has been repeated. (Score:4, Insightful)
until the experiment has been repeated by someone else, I'm not holding any hope.
I tend to agree. This falls into the too good to be true category. Simple materials and a fairly straightforward relatively low tech process to make it reeks of cold fusion. Also showing signs of superconductivity has always been a vague statement and rather noncommittal. Saying that crystal purity didn't seem to be a factor also appears questionable since that would normally be critical to achieving superconductivity. It's a little like saying you just made a 100% efficient photovoltaic cell out of plain ole beach sand. Not real likely.
Re:Room Temperature in UK, maybe not in India? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we prefer the term "high temperature superconductor" over "room temperature". Superconductivity at 313K, if even possible, is still a damn big deal.
And for a lot of applications, anywhere near ambient temperature is good enough. If the cooling system needed is no more complex than a home AC unit, you've removed the primary drawback/limit on practical superconductors, namely the need for cyrogenic liquids.
Re:...really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not peer-reviewed and not published = why the fuck is this on Slashdot?!
Because ad revenue goes up while everybody discusses how it shouldn't be on Slashdot.
Re: move along now (Score:2, Insightful)
Uhhhm no, you don't have to wait for replication. All you have to do is move on to the next story and ignore this stupidity. It's a SINGLE AUTHOR PAPER from some dude at the University of North Bengal, which was reported by a laughably sensationalistic pseudoscience mongering blog and regurgitated here by perhaps the dumbest, most credulous editor on /.'s staff: kdawson (who posts trumpet-blaring room temperature superconductivity stories with such regularity that you could probably set your watch by it). Hang your head in shame /.
Two weeks old, no citations or trackbacks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Someone didn't get the memo (Score:3, Insightful)
Superconductivity Breakthrough! (Score:3, Insightful)
Amazing! Simply ama...
Re:...really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This will later be known as... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the term "unobtainium" wasn't invented by the early heyday of jet fighter engineering (circa the Korean war), I'll eat my carbon-graphite bike frame.
My understanding is that superconductors have current limits independent of resistive effects (possibly due to magnetic field intensity). How much material you need depends on those exact limits. Even silver could be cheap as dirt if the current density is high enough.
The other thing I've heard is that superconductors are generally discovered by observing related effects, not by measuring conductivity itself.
There also seems to be many people here who have never heard of the black swan effect. You can't prove a black swan doesn't exist by observing a sequence of white swans. There's always a first time. This also applies to the possibility that something important is someday discovered or first published independent of peer review.
That said, there's no point in wearing out your salivary glands unnecessarily, although I've heard it's a common ailment to overdose on visual innuendo of the possibility of doing something you're not actually doing (with dim prospects).
For me qualified engineering porn is when the material is officially characterized in important criteria such as current density limits.
I feel the same way about quantum computing. Still haven't seen a formula which describes the ultimate constraint (or cost) on how many qubits can be stacked together (usually the universe puts limits on salivary endeavours). It would be kind of weird if qubits prove to be as stackable as frictionless pulleys.
Re:Two weeks old, no citations or trackbacks (Score:1, Insightful)
17 citations in 3 years is not 'good' by any means. Especially since most of the citations are either Lisi himself, or people saying 'this is how NOT to do it'. A revolutionary paper would have well over 100 citations by now. Lisi is pretty much a joke to any real theoretical physicist.
Re: move along now (Score:4, Insightful)
Riddle me this: if "considering the source" is the only valid criterion on which a person's authority on a subject rests, then how the hell does said person achieve enough authority to ever pass the "consider the source" test?
Considering the source is a shortcut for where to look for interesting papers. It does not, however, have anything to do with the validity of the data itself.
Is it an extraordinary claim? Sure is. Is it valid to wait for someone with some authority to make similar claims before judging that paper? Sure is. Is it possible to dismiss the claims immediately? Complete,utter, bullshit. Your entire argument rests on semantic and personal judgments. There is not a single iota of science in your post. It beats the hell out of me how you got modded up.
Re:Two weeks old, no citations or trackbacks (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I guess that's why he just co-authored "Unification of gravity, gauge fields, and Higgs bosons" with Perimeter Institute physicist Lee Smolin then, huh.....'cause he's just such a joke.
Re:Of course! (Score:5, Insightful)
*sigh* It's even worse than that. IAAP and I was very excited to see this ... at first. The article by the way is very well written (serious science - not a crank). The problem is that the data (figure 2 in the arxiv paper - everyone should check this out btw) on which the author hangs all his hopes is seriously noisy (compared to the size of the "kink" that he superposes on the graph). In other words, if you imagine erasing the drawn-in kink, such artifacts occur several places in the data and are generally not above the noise level.
Not necessarily. When analysing experimental data, keep in mind that it's not only the ~5 points of the kink that carry relevant information, it's *all* the points! Thus, the proper way to look at the graph would be to focus first the lower half (up to the kink), and then on the upper half, and see what's changed. If, for example, linear fits to the separate data regions give separate straight lines, this could mean that there is something in the data.
That having been said: although IAAS (I am a scientist), I'm not a transport measurements guy and I'm not familiar with the state-of-the-art methods in this particular experimental technique... The guys improving their experimental technique would certainly not hurt at all, but for now, I'd leave it to the peer reviewers to estimate the relevance of *this* particular graph ;-)
Error bars (Score:2, Insightful)
Where are the error bars?
I had a college teacher in one of the experimental courses who figuratively ran over me and some of my fellow students' reports for plotting graphs of measured quantities without error bars, particularly when there's a "curve fit" on it. The idea is to figure out how close/far from the "expected behavior" are the experimental point. From then on I've always paid attention to it. At least some reference to it in the preprint would be nice. For all we know, those microvolt output voltages could have errors as big as the graph scale.
Re:Cold Fusion (Score:5, Insightful)
They claimed that the power was 1 watt. A number so high that detecting the reaction is totally trivial.. for example if you are in the room for a few hours, you die without a decent piece of shielding.
The current experiments show some interesting facts too. No one can get any decent signal above the noise, while home built fusors totally destroy cold fusion with easily detectable reaction rates (on the order of 10^6 reaction per second IIRC). Hell even diode tube neutron sources destroy them for reaction rate.
Re:Superconductivity Breakthrough! (Score:5, Insightful)
Peer review is not as magical as you think it is.
And as someone who peer reviews... why do i waste my time reading these papers that are only on ArXiv?
Re:Of course! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: move along now (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that's got nothing at all to do with anything that deglr6328 pointed out. Where, in his post, did he mention at all the identity or even qualifications of the author?
In this case, there are a few ways in which the author could have made his paper more credible, all without requiring anything resembling authority:
1. Collaborated with other condensed matter physicists.
2. Submitted paper for publication in prestigious journal (with a high-profile discovery like room-temperature superconductivity, this would be a discovery fit for such a journal).
3. Worked to get more comprehensive data before claiming room-temperature superconductivity.
Honestly it's things like this which makes science unappealing to younger generations. Nothing like watching someone put their toe in the water and have every other scientist verbally trash him as if the extra vitriol were necessary.
Re:Two weeks old, no citations or trackbacks (Score:3, Insightful)
The paper got more than the usual attention from the media because of it's charming title and charismatic author, as well as a very attractive accompanying illustration.
It was nonetheless serious research, and as others have noted has been cited numerous times. It has been kicked around in the usual way of advanced theories, with nothing conclusive either way.
In the popular press it was really more human-interest story than science story; practically no science writers are even remotely capable of reading a paper like that. In the relevant community it gets about the right amount of attention: a difficult theory in a far-out reach of theoretical physics, competing with other equally difficult theories, all of them purely abstract at this point.
So abstract, that is, that it really has no business being in the popular press at all, but people are curious about the cosmological implications even if they're really not in a position to understand them.