A team of South Korean scientists has pre-printed a paper asserting that they have achieved superconductivity at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The paper has led to widespread speculation that this is the most significant physics discovery in decades, with huge implications for energy, medical technology and computing. Even Jordan Peterson is asking if room-temperature superconductivity has become a reality.
If the paper is true, it is indeed big news.
The authors of this latest paper are not hiding the light of their excitement under any bushels of modesty
But there are widespread doubts as to whether it will prove true. The paper comes from an unknown team at a start-up institute with little track record in the field, it has not been peer reviewed and its charts are frankly a mess. So the betting is it will prove to be just a familiar hype-and-disappoint cycle of the kind that plagues the field of energy physics.
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