WEBVTT - TechStuff Tidbits: Superconductivity and LK-99 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.520 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.680 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.400 are you. It's time for a tech Stuff Tidbits episode. 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:25.000 But this one's about a pretty complicated topic. And y'all, 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.720 we could be at the beginning of a transformational moment 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:34.519 within technology, one that potentially could lead to truly incredible results. 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.680 Or it's possible we could just be waiting to find 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.200 out that a promising experiment isn't really what we thought 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:45.920 it was. And this all centers around super conductivity. Now, 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.120 to understand super conductivity, we first have to talk about 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:53.960 just plain old conductivity the Clark Kent super Conductivity's cal 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.959 l and we're specifically talking about electrical conductivity rather than 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:03.400 thermal conductctivity for this episode. So we say a material 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.360 is conductive if it is well suited to allow an 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:11.560 electric charge to pass through it. Materials that resist electrical 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:16.360 charges passing through them are insulators. In Between conductors and insulators, 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.840 you've got your semiconductors, which can behave like a conductor 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.520 under certain conditions and like a resistor under others. So 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:28.240 a good conductor will allow electric charge through pretty easily, 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:32.360 but some of that energy in that electrical charge will 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:36.440 end up converting into heat and you lose that. This 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:41.600 is because even good conductors like copper still have some 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:45.760 electrical resistance. You can actually affect the amount of electrical 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:49.400 resistance by changing the physical properties of the copper itself. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.880 For example, a very thin copper wire will have higher 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.880 electrical resistance than a thick copper cable. It's made out 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.880 of the same stuff, but the actual physical properties change things, 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.800 but it still will have electrical resistance either way. And 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:09.400 some of our appliances, like say toasters, they rely on 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.600 electrical resistance. We purposefully build them so that they have 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:15.920 these metal coils inside that heat up as we pass 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:19.440 an electrical current through them, and that ends up toasting 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:23.880 your bread. The electrical resistance causes some of the charge 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.120 to convert into heat, so then you can toast your 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:32.359 toast and make your belts or whatever. Resistance means that 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:35.959 it is impossible for us to build a perfectly efficient 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.040 electrical system under what I would call normal circumstances, like 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:46.840 every day type circumstances and very very specific circumstances, we 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.560 can achieve it, but it is a lot of work 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.520 and we'll get there. But under normal circumstances, we're always 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:57.960 going to lose some energy due to electrical resistance. You know, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:01.360 it's going to boil off heat. And this is why 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.240 lead gamers out there have to invest in really effective 0:03:05.320 --> 0:03:08.239 cooling systems for their gaming rigs. Sometimes they get those 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.280 like crazy water cooling systems. The over clockers out there 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.639 might even play with like liquid nitrogen for usually an 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.440 exhibition type thing. It's not something they would do for 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.400 every day, but yeah, they have to deal with that 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.680 because their gaming rigs have countless circuits in them. Like 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.280 when you think of a CPU or a GPU, you know, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.960 central processing unit or graphics processing unit. Essentially those are 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:38.200 chips with just millions or billions of little circuits in them, 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:42.800 and if you don't take the heat away from those circuits, 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:45.360 then it's going to overheat and stuff is going to 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.600 wear out, it's going to go wrong, it's gonna shut down. 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:50.520 So you have to have a way to manage the 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.360 heat in the system. And that's why you've got these 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.920 these great cooling systems and these gaming rigs and other 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.920 types of computers. So under normal circumstances, an electrical can 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.240 we'll serve as a pathway for electricity. But you aren't 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.000 going to get the same amount of electricity out as 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.240 you put into it. There's always going to be less 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.880 electricity coming out the other side because of the fact 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:16.200 you lose some of it due to heat. Unless and 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:17.840 this is where we have to go back in time. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.200 In fact, I don't think we've used the tech stuff 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.480 time machine in a few years. Looks like I still 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:26.680 got it over there in the corner. It's holding one 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:30.600 of my guitars. Let me just just move that up. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:35.000 Oh it's okay, right there, we go and get in 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:39.160 and all right, let's set the dial to nineteen eleven. 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:53.880 Here we go. Okay, we're in nineteen eleven, and here 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:58.520 we see a Dutch physicist. His name is Oh no, okay, 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.480 I'm going to get this totally wrong. Just saying it 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:05.160 right up front, I cannot pronounce Dutch names, but I'm 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.120 going to give it a try. Just know that this 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.359 is not the right pronunciation, and I understand, and I 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.960 know it's terrible. You don't have to tell me anyway. 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:18.479 Haika common link on us and he's leading a research 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:21.880 team and they're studying the effects of very very cold 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:28.240 temperatures on electrical conductivity, I mean, like exceedingly cold temperatures. 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:32.120 So his team is currently cooling a sample of mercury 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:37.719 to minus two sixty nine degrees celsius. That's four point 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:42.880 two kelvin, so we're not that much higher than absolute zero, 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.359 like the temperature of deep space. And his team is 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:52.640 now observing that at this temperature, mercury's resistance drops to zero. 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:57.159 It no longer has electrical resistance. It has become a 0:05:57.320 --> 0:06:03.320 perfectly efficient conductor for electricity, a superconductor. And it turns 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:07.719 out that below a specific critical temperature, and that temperature 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.240 depends upon the material that we're using at the time, 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.720 the conductor will go through a fundamental change that means 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:20.160 they no longer offer resistance to electrical charges. Why, well, 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.040 that's a darn good question to answer that. Let's get 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.159 back to present day. All right, everyone back in the 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:40.960 time machine. Here we go. Oh it's hotter than I remember. Okay, Well, 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:43.960 now here we are. So our understanding of physics at 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:49.159 the time of this discovery of superconductivity had no explanation 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.520 as to why this would happen, or how it happens, 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.799 or in fact, even what was happening on a granular level. 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.440 I mean, we knew that resistance was dropping to zero, 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.599 but he didn't know what was happening to cause that. 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:07.640 Even quantum theory shrugged and said, beats me, daddy, Oh, 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:09.880 I got no idea. It would actually take a few 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.480 decades before some researchers proposed a hypothesis regarding what was 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:19.200 going on. And well, their hypothesis, while good, doesn't cover everything, 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:23.400 but anyway, between nineteen eleven and nineteen fifty seven. Nineteen 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.400 fifty seven is when we would get that hypothesis. There 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:30.280 was another discovery relating to superconductivity that was really neat. 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:35.920 Two German scientists, Walter Meisner and Robert Oxenfeld found that 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:40.000 when a conductor was cooled to that superconductor state, when 0:07:40.040 --> 0:07:44.160 it dropped below its critical temperature, it would also expel 0:07:44.600 --> 0:07:49.480 magnetic fields. So we've talked a lot about electromagnetism in 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.560 this podcast. Right, If you pass a conductive material through 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.960 a magnetic field, the magnetic field induces current to flow 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.960 through the conductor. What allows us to make things like 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:08.280 electrical transformers. In alternating current transmission. We also know that 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:12.640 an electric charge moving through a conductor generates a magnetic field. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.160 I mean, I'm sure everyone out there has done some 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.600 version of the physics experiment where you take copper wire 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.680 and you wind it around an iron nail, and you 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.080 connect the wire to a battery, and now you've got 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:30.680 yourself an electromagnet. So there's this beautiful relationship between electricity 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:34.640 and magnetism that we've been studying for more than a 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:40.440 century now. Well, with superconductors, Meisner and Oxenfeld observed that 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:45.600 nearly all internal magnetic fields that should be passing through 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:50.600 the superconductor material were zeroed out. They didn't exist. The 0:08:50.679 --> 0:08:54.840 exterior magnetic field intensified. So it turns out that the 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.880 magnetic fields that normally would be able to pass through 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.880 the superconductor material were now being expelled. They were passing 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:05.360 around it as if the superconductor had some kind of 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:10.200 force field against magnetic fields being able to penetrate it. 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:14.240 Similar to how electricity can't get out of a superconductor, 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.960 you know, it doesn't boil off in the form of heat, 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:22.240 magnetic fields can't get into a superconductor under normal conditions. 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:25.480 We'll actually talk a bit about the limitations of that 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:30.040 in just a moment. Now, one super interesting thing about 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.800 the so called Meisner effect. Now some folks will actually 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.920 include Oxenfeld and call it the Meisner Oxenfeld effect, But 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.600 more often than not, I just see the Meisner effect, 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.319 which is, you know, just shows that you really want 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:47.000 that top billing. Anyway, One really interesting thing happens when 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.600 you bring a permanent magnet near a superconductor that then 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:55.280 is brought to below its critical temperature. So normally the 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.160 magnetic fields that are emitted by the permanent magnet would 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.440 also then pass through the superconductor once the magnet's close enough. So, 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.280 if you have a superconductor of material but you haven't 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.880 cooled it below its critical temperature, it's not acting as 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.760 a superconductor yet. You could put a physical magnet right 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.479 on top of that. Then, if you cool the superconductor 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:18.280 material so that it does go below its critical temperature, 0:10:19.000 --> 0:10:22.239 it starts to expel magnetic fields. Well, the permanent magnet 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.760 is generating a magnetic field that otherwise would be passing 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:30.240 through the superconductor. Since the superconnector is expelling the magnetic fields, 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:34.040 it pushes against the permanent magnet, and the permanent magnet 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:38.880 will levitate and appear to really lock in place above 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:43.360 the superconductive material. You could also lay this out so 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:47.120 that you had say, electromagnetic track on the underside of 0:10:47.120 --> 0:10:50.080 a table and take a puck of superconductor material that's 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.480 cooled below its critical temperature and lock it in place 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:58.120 below the electro magnet. That's possible too, I've seen that. 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.720 But it looks really cool because it looks like it's 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.200 just magically hanging there in the air, and you can 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:08.920 change its orientation and it will maintain that orientation above 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.720 the superconductor material. Now there's a lot that's going on here. 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.439 It's not just like magic. In fact, it's not magic 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.320 at all. But the explanation gets really tricky. There's like 0:11:19.640 --> 0:11:22.640 kind of like little currents, like a little eddy within 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.760 the superconductor that's effectively creating a magnetic field that matches 0:11:26.800 --> 0:11:29.920 but repels the permanent magnets field. No matter what orientation 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.320 you put it in. You change the orientation of the magnet, 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:36.439 the little eddies, which are really little currents of electrons 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.360 in the superconductor material change and then it continues to 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:45.320 repel the magnet perfectly. This, to get more specific, would 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:48.640 get into quantum mechanics, and I would just goof that 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:51.040 up if I were to attempt to explain it, because 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.960 it is well beyond my understanding. So I will say 0:11:54.960 --> 0:12:00.120 that if you haven't watched any videos of magnets interacting 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.760 with superconductors or vice versa, you should really check that out. 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.040 There are a ton of them on YouTube. They are 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.760 really fascinating to watch. It looks at first like you're 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:14.559 watching some sort of camera trickery because the materials are 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.840 behaving in a way that's counterintuitive. We don't see stuff 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.720 like that in our day to day lives. It's really interesting. 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:24.079 And the fact that you can position the magnet in 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.400 different orientations with regard to the superconductor and it will 0:12:27.440 --> 0:12:31.319 just stay in that position relative to the superconductor as 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.920 if it's locked in space. It's really remarkable. Okay, we're 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:37.360 going to take a quick break. When we come back, 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.920 I'm going to talk about that hypothesis I alluded to 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.920 earlier and how it attempted to explain what was going on. 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:56.880 But first, let's thank our sponsors. All Right, we're back, 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.400 and now we're getting up to the nineteen fifties and 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:04.640 a trio of American scientists John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:09.800 John Shreefer proposed a microscopic theory of super conductivity, and 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.960 it became known as the BCS theory. It took the 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.960 first letter off of each scientist's last name. The theory 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.160 has to do with electron pairs and crystalline lattices within 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:27.400 the superconductor and these vibrations called phonons. And I can't 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.720 really pretend to fully understand it, or even partly understand it, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.760 but it does a good job of describing what's happening 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:43.599 for super cooled superconductive materials. However, this particular hypothesis or 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:49.880 theory did not explain how this would work with superconductors 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.400 that could operate at so called high temperatures, you know, 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.560 beyond a threshold. This theory doesn't really apply. And the 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:03.320 problem is we were observing effects that went beyond the 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:07.480 parameters this theory would cover. Now, when I say high temperature, 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:10.760 I'm not actually talking about anything that you or I 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.280 would consider a high temperature. In fact, it's quite the contrary. 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.920 We're still talking temperatures that can get down to as 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:22.360 low as almost minus two hundred degrees celsius. To date, 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:28.280 I want to say that the hottest superconductor that ever 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:34.120 operated is still like around minus twenty five celsius something 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.120 like that, and even then it's under intense pressure. We'll 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:42.080 talk about pressure too, so you know, we're really talking 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:46.720 about very, very very cold temperatures. Even with the so 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.200 called high temperature superconductors, it's just that they're much higher 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.720 than say minus two hundred and sixty nine celsius. Until 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:59.160 very recently, all claims of finding material that displays super 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:03.720 conductivity at temperatures that we would even remotely consider comfortable 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:08.560 have all fallen through. Right Like, scientists would submit a 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:11.640 paper suggesting that they had made a breakthrough and found 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:15.920 such a material, and then later retract those papers, discovering that, 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:19.840 in fact, there was some sort of mistake along the 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:23.080 way and they were not correct, and so they had to, 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.840 you know, take it back. Now. Interestingly, two factors can 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.320 potentially destroy the superconductor's state, and one we've already mentioned 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:36.840 is temperature. Right if the temperature goes above the critical 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:42.280 temperature for superconductors, then the material loses superconductivity. They will 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:46.440 again have electrical resistance, it will no longer expel magnetic fields. 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:51.240 But the other factor that can disrupt the superconductor state 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:56.160 would be a sufficiently powerful magnetic field. I mentioned, like 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.120 a regular permanent magnet on top of a superconductor. You'll 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:05.360 see the permanent magnet levitate. Well, if that permanent magnet 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:10.680 was super strong, like it really had very strong magnetic fields, 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.720 then that could be more than what the force field 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.480 the superconductor generates can handle. And the magnetic fields will 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:24.160 pierce through the superconductor, and for one subset of superconductors, 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:28.400 that's enough for it to completely lose superconductivity. Under those conditions. 0:16:28.640 --> 0:16:30.960 Take the magnet away and you keep it at its 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.280 critical temperature, it goes back to being a superconductor. But 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.280 in the presence of powerful enough magnetic fields that can 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:42.240 overpower the superconductive material and it just becomes a regular 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:48.200 conductor again. Now, as I mentioned, there are magnets that 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:50.960 can do that and will disrupt superconductors, but there are 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.680 other types of superconductors they can actually kind of roll 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:58.080 with the punches a little bit. So in this regard, 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:00.920 there are two broad classifications that we can talk about 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:04.639 with superconductors. There's type one. This is the type that 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:09.560 will lose superconductivity in the presence of a strong applied 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:16.480 magnetic field. Then you have type two superconductors. These will 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:19.600 actually continue to operate as a superconductor even in the 0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.040 presence of a strong applied magnetic field. It's just that 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.639 at the points where the strong magnetic field intersects with 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:32.200 the superconductor, you get non superconducting material. So like within 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:35.440 the same mass, just imagine you've got a big old 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:40.000 puck of the superconductor material, and you've got this strong 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:44.680 applied magnetic field that intersects with a superconductor material at 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.879 that local point where there's that intersection, that would no 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.919 longer be performing like a superconductor. But other areas of 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:56.119 the puck that are not intersecting with this magnetic field 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.840 continue to act like a superconnector. This is a type 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:04.720 to superconductor material. This is why we're able to use 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:11.640 superconductors in labs that involve really powerful magnets. So, for example, 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:16.399 the large hadron collider particle accelerators, they need really really 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.520 strong magnets in order to drive those sub atomic particles 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.240 at speeds that are close to the speed of light, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.240 but they also need superconductors. In order to do that, 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:31.280 and if there were no type two superconductor material out there, 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:35.199 it wouldn't work because the magnets would end up shutting 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:38.040 down the superconductors. They would just become regular conductors. You 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.000 would lose too much energy in the form of heat, 0:18:40.280 --> 0:18:43.040 and the whole operation wouldn't work. So fortunately, there are 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.119 these type two superconductors out there that can kind of 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:51.919 localize where the disruption happens and the rest of the 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.119 material can still perform as a superconductor. It's pretty mind blowing. Now, 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.720 there are some big drawbacks with superconductors, as I have 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.639 describe them. I mean, you've got to super cool the stuff, 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.760 which means making use of materials of like liquid nitrogen 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:11.240 or liquid hydrogen, which is really expensive. It's dangerous. I mean, 0:19:11.280 --> 0:19:16.400 this material is so cold that it will cause incredible 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:18.359 damage if you were to come into contact with it 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.680 for any you know, sufficient length of time. And it's 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.400 really hard to use this stuff like it's it's got 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.120 a huge barrier to being able to do it, which 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:34.600 means that our applications for superconductors are by necessity really limited. 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:38.000 They have to be limited to just the stuff that 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:43.680 really needs the superconductors to work and are like huge 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:51.480 like moonshot level experiments and scientific research stuff like particle accelerators, 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:57.159 Like that's such a huge undertaking that using superconnectors as 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:01.639 part of the whole process. But you can't use superconductors 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.359 to do more mundane stuff because it's way too expensive 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:11.960 and complicated to make it practical. It just it doesn't work. Now, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:16.000 you can actually adjust that critical temperature I was talking about, 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.680 You can actually make that higher so that you can 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:23.560 operate at higher temperatures and still have super conductivity, But 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:28.480 only if you're increasing the pressure that's on the system. 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.600 So it has to be in a pressurized chamber. Right. 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:36.960 This is why like the hottest superconductor can operate at 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.400 you know, minus twenty five degrees or whatever it might be. 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:46.200 It's because it's inside a system that has incredible pressure 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:51.000 applied to it. So again you're even as you remove 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:55.399 the need to super cool it to like really really 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.800 cold temperatures, you increase the need to have to create 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:03.320 these incredible pressure chambers. So it's a trade off, right, 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:07.240 Like you're having to trade one difficult set of circumstances 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.040 for another, and it still makes it very expensive and 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:15.720 dangerous and complicated. Now, if we could make a superconductive 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:20.520 material that performs as a superconductor, but does so at 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.960 room temperature and at you know, ambient air pressure, that 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:30.440 would change the world. When we come back, I'll explain 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.520 how it would change the world and why some people 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:46.760 think we might already be there. Okay, we're back. I 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.800 had mentioned that if we could make superconductive material that 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.960 performs at room temperature ambient air pressure, it would really 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.320 change everything. Well, it's pretty easy to imagine, right. Let's 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.320 just take the really mundane example of that gaming pc 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:06.560 I talked about earlier. Imagine you've got this crazy tricked 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:10.520 out gaming pc. It's got the latest processors in it. 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:15.399 It's incredibly powerful, but all the circuits are made out 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:19.199 of a material that's a superconductor, which means there's no 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:23.760 heat being generated. It's not losing any electricity due to heat. 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:26.960 This means a couple of really big things. One, we 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.760 don't need any of those cooling systems anymore. There's no 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:32.399 heat being generated, so there's no heat to take away. 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:37.080 You don't need water cooling or even fans because you're 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:40.520 not losing any energy due to heat. So a big 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:44.399 old chonker of a gaming PC would run silently. There'd 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.240 be no moving parts. You would just have these incredible 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:51.520 circuits made out of the superconductor material that can operate 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:55.760 at room temperature. But also, we wouldn't need as much 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:58.639 power to run our PC because none of our power 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:02.000 is being lost in the form of heart. It's perfectly efficient. 0:23:02.400 --> 0:23:04.879 You would be able to achieve that level of performance 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.720 with less power because you don't have to factor in 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:12.879 power loss at all. Perfect transmission of electricity would be 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:17.239 a possibility, And that's interesting for a PC like you 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.760 just suddenly think like, oh, I wouldn't need as big 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.240 of a power supply, and I would mean a lower 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.800 electricity bill. But let's expand that. Think about that for 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:30.440 the purposes of actual electricity transmission from power plant to destination. 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:33.359 What if all the power lines were made of the 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:38.640 superconductive material. Now we would be able to transmit electricity 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:43.920 with no loss. You would have incredible efficiency. It would 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:47.240 mean that we wouldn't need to produce as much electricity 0:23:47.320 --> 0:23:51.360 at least to meet our current demand. So if we 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:54.200 were to assume that everyone was using exactly the same 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:58.000 amount of electricity on the end of it as they 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.359 are right now, then the amount of electricity we would 0:24:01.359 --> 0:24:03.360 need to produce would be much lower because we wouldn't 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:06.720 lose anything in the process. We would end up having 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:11.520 a smaller demand on our power generation. That being said, 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:15.680 between me and you, that's never how it works out. 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:19.879 If our ability to produce electricity exceeds whatever the current 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:24.800 demand is, we just typically see a demand rise in response. Right. 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.000 It's not that, oh, now we're producing more electricity than 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:31.080 we need. It's oh, now we can use more electricity, 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:33.800 so now we need more. That's how it typically goes. 0:24:33.880 --> 0:24:36.520 But it's still a nice thought, right, this idea of 0:24:36.920 --> 0:24:43.880 perfectly efficient transmitters, that would be amazing, And these efficient 0:24:43.920 --> 0:24:47.480 electrical systems would mean other stuff too, like batteries would 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:50.879 last longer, right because again you don't lose any energy 0:24:50.880 --> 0:24:55.119 in the form of heat. More efficient systems means longer 0:24:55.160 --> 0:24:59.640 battery life even without an effective change to the batteries 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:04.280 themselve levels. The improvement in the circuitry would be in 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:07.440 the batteries would last longer. They wouldn't be having to 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:11.960 deplete so quickly, which means things like electric vehicles would 0:25:12.000 --> 0:25:13.879 see a boost and how far they could travel on 0:25:13.920 --> 0:25:18.000 a single charge. Again, not because the battery technology has improved, 0:25:18.000 --> 0:25:22.440 but because we're using the superconductive material for the circuitry 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:25.440 within the electric vehicle. On the flip side, let's say 0:25:25.480 --> 0:25:29.399 it's in you know, consumer phones. Your phone would not 0:25:29.680 --> 0:25:32.199 have to recharge nearly as frequently. You would be able 0:25:32.240 --> 0:25:36.200 to hold a charge much longer because again increased efficiency. 0:25:36.440 --> 0:25:41.560 It's actually really hard to express how big a deal 0:25:41.960 --> 0:25:46.720 this would be. I mean, it affects everything from environmental issues, 0:25:46.880 --> 0:25:51.320 to financial issues, to you know, all sorts of stuff. 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:54.000 And I haven't even touched on what it would mean 0:25:54.080 --> 0:25:57.760 for science, like being able to have a room temperature 0:25:57.840 --> 0:26:04.320 operating superconductor and suddenly make things like particle accelerators orders 0:26:04.359 --> 0:26:08.359 of magnitude easier to build. They would still be really complicated, 0:26:08.400 --> 0:26:10.280 Don't get me wrong. It's not like it would suddenly 0:26:10.320 --> 0:26:13.359 become something we could all make in our backyards. But 0:26:14.440 --> 0:26:17.280 it would be way easier than the systems that were 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:22.920 needed to create the large Hadron collider, which means increasing 0:26:23.000 --> 0:26:26.920 accessibility to that kind of science, which means being able 0:26:26.960 --> 0:26:30.240 to learn a lot more about our universe. Like these 0:26:30.280 --> 0:26:33.800 are the sort of big, big picture things that would 0:26:33.840 --> 0:26:38.920 be possible with an actual working room temperature superconductive material. 0:26:40.840 --> 0:26:45.880 But all of those possibilities depend upon a whole bunch 0:26:45.960 --> 0:26:49.600 of stuff that we just aren't sure about yet. And 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:53.040 the reason I'm talking about this at all, and you 0:26:53.080 --> 0:26:55.320 know I mentioned this in a news episode, but maybe 0:26:55.359 --> 0:26:58.600 you've heard about it otherwise, is that some researchers in 0:26:58.640 --> 0:27:02.359 South Korea reveal that a material they made in a lab, 0:27:02.800 --> 0:27:07.080 which they call LK ninety nine, appears to be super 0:27:07.080 --> 0:27:10.440 conductive at temperatures as warm as one hundred and twenty 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:16.160 seven degrees celsius. That's two hundred and sixty nine degrees fahrenheit. 0:27:16.960 --> 0:27:21.640 So that means that at any temperature below those, this 0:27:21.760 --> 0:27:25.640 material would be beneath its critical temperature and would operate 0:27:25.720 --> 0:27:30.280