site banner
PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   3121 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 12, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

2
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

https://thequantuminsider.com/2024/01/04/its-back-researchers-say-theyve-replicated-lk-99-room-temperature-superconductor-experiment/

If I wanted to bet that some variation of (refrigerated-room) temperature Super Conductors will be available in the next ten years, what would I invest in?

What use are super conductors? If they are used in computing and they'll drop the price of computation then Bitcoin or other computation limited cryptocurrencies could be a good idea.

Proof of work cryptocurrencies are, if anything, harmed by the development of cheaper compute. The compute difficulty is not a bottleneck, it's the POINT. When miners start solving the hashes too quickly the networks automatically adjust to increase the difficulty.

So if supercomputers got cheaper then all the miners would be forced to upgrade and otherwise nothing would change.

Nathan Fielder

You can't make more bitcoin, so price shouldn't go down unless stores of value that can't be inflated away become common.

There are plenty of factors that impact price besides total supply.

Yeah, if it gets banned or cracked down on. But US now approved Bitcoin ETFs, so that's quite .. unlikely now. It's also not great for crime either, so..

I don't really have any price thesis on Bitcoin, except that computation efficiency won't help it.

Generally, "electromagnets" as far as I know. So, cheaper/smaller MRIs, improved efficiency of motors and generators for everything under the sun, more viable mag-lev systems.

While there are probably some improvements for computers, I doubt it'd be a sea change, but a double digit efficiency improvement isn't terrible.

It depends on the kind of superconductor, particularly material properties.

Ideally it should be malleable and ductile, and I don't think LK-99 is that, so making wiring might be iffy.

There are heaps of other factors, such as maximum temperature for superconductivity (claimed to be very high by SC standards, as in an ice cream freezer works, you don't need liquid nitrogen or helium)*, the maximum amount of current it can carry, the amount of magnetic flux it can tolerate and so on.

In terms of computing, from what I heard speculated, LK-99 is probably not that useful, and besides, in Bitcoin the amount of energy needed to mine a single coin will increase as you make more, so it won't help.

*The Chinese replications claim it's still not quite room temperature, unless you live in Siberia I guess. Still an enormous big if true.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats