Anything electric would be dramatically improved. Electric car range, consumer devices like computers and phones would have a huge jump in efficiency, etc. You name it basically.
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
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Asklemmy
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In theory, the cost of getting an MRI would come way down due to not having to keep the coils crazy cold. In practice, we have capitalism, so it'll probably go up
In practice, the medical market is one of the most heavily regulated in history. We definitely donβt have capitalism in medicine.
If we did, prices would go way down.
The potential for tech miniaturization alone is a massive deal.
Right now, one of the biggest obstacles toward packing more transistors into a given space is the fact that they radiate a shit ton of heat which must be removed by close to immediate contact with the heat sink.
Without the need to deal with a shit ton of waste heat, instead of only having one, or only a couple layers of transistors in a processor, you can stack that shit high. Volumetric processing. Instead of wider chips, we could have taller chips. Hell we could stop calling them chips, and start calling them blocks!
If our processors could be as dense vertically as they are horizontally, we would see entire orders of magnitude more processing power, and, because a lot of energy is not being lost to heat, it's actually being used productively. Or in other words, you need less energy and yet can accomplish even more work.
I read in another comment somewhere that introducing a superconductor wouldn't change the properties of the semiconductor bits. So the transistors themselves would still produce heat. But there are also full-conductor bits that produce heat that might be eliminated.
Having a conductor with zero resistance allows to transmit (regenerative) power from where it can be generated for free (solar in the desert) all across to where it is needed without loosing any power on this way.
If I am recalling an article correctly - superconductors mean zero resistance electric transfer. Currently anything using electricity loses power due to resistance when travelling - partly why a CPU gets so hot for example. By having zero resistance, far less power is lost to resistance and heat which means more power efficiency
Electric resistance is not the primary cause of energy turnover in CMOS logic. See this comment in this same thread: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/1799661
@Diabolo96@lemmy.dbzer0.com @r3nder@beehaw.org
Thanks you so much for correcting me. although my knowledge is extremely in this field, i my comment wasn't a random speculation by me but stems from several discussions from Ycombinator threads i read so i don't know what to think.
Wireless charging of mobile devices generates lots of heat which then degrades the battery. If we had superconductors, the charger wouldnβt heat up at all no matter how high the current is. The chemical reactions inside the battery might still generate heat, but the rest of the system wouldnβt.
The chemistry obviously has its limitations too, but as far as the charger and internal electronics of the device are concerned, having superconductors would speed up the process.
It would take maglev from a laboratory technology to a common one. That would be an enormous boon to rail tech, especially in high density corridors.
A common one everywhere except for the US *
It'd be in the US, too. It'd show up in places like Disney parks, as an attraction. :(
especially in high density corridors.
It would require building additional tracks (that would be expensive to maintain), so doubt it.
I don't disagree with you, but for the sake of keeping a hopeful tone, let's say that all of this is in Minecraft.
Everything that has lots of wired coil (motors, generators, turbines, wireless charging)
Less resistance = less energy lost in these endless wire coils.
More efficient battery technology. Imagine being able to have a battery in your laptop that lasts for weeks.
Can you elaborate on this? I always thought the limits on batteries was the energy density of the chemistry rather than heat/conductivity of the components. What am I missing?
Last I read, current solar panels were only about 8% efficient. That number would skyrocket...
Home mag-lev. Build the super-conductor into the flooring of your home. Equip heavy furniture and appliances with electromagnets in the feet. Dial up the power on the magnets and the furniture will float up and you can slide it to it's new location. Dial down the magnets and furniture will settle back to the ground.
It's a zero resistance environment. Usually you would have to use liquid nitrogen to freeze something lime a hockey puck. There are some really cool things you can do then. Especially with magnets. Lay out a track of magnets and something thar is superconducting will hover over then. If you push it it will keep its speed unless acted upon by other forces. Now imagine we don't need to freeze the material...
You could be a crypto bro on a Raspberry Pi.
Hell, someone might finally max out Flight Simulator X.
All computers becomes instantly outdated by what amount to 50 years of speed increase.