LK-99 and bitcoin development

[Yamane_Keto]

This story is rapidly changing.

“The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor”

I don't know why there is no discussion of this but a lot of the action has been going on around the room-temperature superconductor, which the authors hang their reputation on, for a look around I quote:

The authors describe a lead-based copper-doped material, LK-99, which is made by first preparing a well-characterized mineral (lanarkite, Pb2(SO4)O) from lead oxide and lead sulfate. Separately, copper phosphide (Cu3P), another well-characterized compound, is also freshly prepared from elemental copper and phosphorus. These two substances are ground together in a 1:1 ratio and the mixture is sealed in a vacuum-evacuated quartz tube and heated to 925C, forming LK-99, which is Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O, a dark polycrystalline material. The structure is very similar to lead apatite, a well-characterized phosphate mineral, but its crystallographic unit cell is slightly smaller due to the substitution of particular lead atoms in its lattice by copper ones.

preprints appeared last week making the remarkable claim of a well-above-room-temperature superconducting material at ambient pressure, dubbed LK-99. This is one of the most sought-after goals in all of materials science and condensed matter physics, something that until now has only been found in (numerous!) science fiction stories. The potential applications of such a material almost can go without saying - depending on what current density it could accommodate, it could improve almost anything that uses electromagnetism.

Humans have been excited over the past years about superconducting materials that we do not need to cool with liquid nitrogen, and the Bitcoin mining community is one of these areas, which until now there is no information about it, and if it is correct, then a major change occurs in our lives.

What are your opinions, does anyone know more? What is the effect of this article on Bitcoin, if these allegations are realistic?

Sources

https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008
https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12037

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/breaking-superconductor-news
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/room-temperature-superconductor-new-developments

[1714591225]

1714591225

[1714591225]

1714591225

[1714591225]

1714591225

[jvanname]

If they really did show that LK-99 is a room temperature room pressure superconductor, then I have shown that the existence of a rank-into-rank cardinal is inconsistent (I will make another post about this later). But I tend not to believe stories like this. Every now and then, we hear a story about someone who did something like prove the Riemann hypothesis, proved P is not equal to NP, produced a room temperature superconductor, established that the standard model of particle physics is wrong, cured aging, or did something else. And invariably, these stories end up vanishing once people lose interest in them. I would personally let the material scientists figure out whether LK-99 is really a superconductor since I will need to see more evidence of superconductivity before I spend more time on LK-99.

If people really cared about using superconductors for Bitcoin mining, then why are they not investing in the basic research for making a cryptocurrency mining algorithm that is designed to accelerate/incentivize the development of energy efficient reversible computing hardware? Reversible computing is the future, and the energy put into Bitcoin mining should be put to better use.

[Ucy]

So the goal of those promoting this in Bitcoin space is to see if it can be applied in the development of energy-efficient Bitcoin miners that don't need to be cooled with liquid helium. In other words, if this is successful/true miners made from room temperature based superconductors, even without using liquid helium, will nolonger produce too much heat as by product due lack of electrical resistance.

[jvanname]

Helium becomes a liquid at about 4 K. The very first superconductors discovered needed to be cooled to about 4 K using liquid helium, but today we have superconductors that exist at higher temperatures.

Liquid nitrogen exists at temperatures below 77 K, and we currently have materials that are superconducting at 77 K, but we do not have materials that are superconducting at a room temperature of about 300 K and at atmospheric pressure.

But the only way to make Bitcoin mining (and computation in general) more energy efficient is to use reversible computation. Without reversible computation, one cannot make computers much more energy efficient even if one uses superconductors at very low temperatures. But then again, if you want to get the most out of reversible computation while cryptocurrency mining, you should invest in a cryptocurrency with a mining algorithm that is designed for reversible hardware. Bitcoin mining was never designed for reversible hardware, so if you use reversible hardware for Bitcoin mining, there will be some computational complexity theoretic overhead.  Developing reversible computers will be difficult, and the best way to make it as easy as possible will be to use cryptocurrency mining algorithms designed for reversible computation.

Added 9/14/2023

It turns out that I WAS RIGHT. Well, I am always right. LK-99 turned out to be complete and total bullshit. People need to focus on something important like REVERSIBLE COMPUTATION!

[franky1]

But the only way to make Bitcoin mining (and computation in general) more energy efficient is to use reversible computation.
It turns out that I WAS RIGHT. Well, I am always right.

LK-99 turned out to be complete and total bullshit. People need to focus on something important like REVERSIBLE COMPUTATION!

reversible computing is just about retaining previous settings to revert back to previous state

bitcoin mining does not require retaining previous states or undoing settings

please learn what bitcoin asics actually do

[jvanname]

franky1-I am ignoring you. If you want me to respond to the content of your post rather than just its existence, then you need to get someone to quote you. You are a chlurmck.

-Joseph Van Name Ph.D.

[spectre71]

Well if you made a faster machine wouldn't they increase the difficulty kind of negating the investment?

Helium is incredibly expensive let alone cooling it.