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The past three weeks have witnessed the dramatic rise and fall of a new candidate for the materials science: a superconductor (超导体) that works at room temperature. On July 22th 2023, a team of researchers in South Korea reported their findings on a substance they called LK-99, claiming that its discovery was a “brand new historical moment”. A hit of online physics discussions followed, only to fall flat two weeks later. LK-99, it seemed, was a bubble (泡沫).

Whenever electrical power runs through a transmission (传送) line, some is lost as waste heat, a common tax forced by the laws of nature. The huge potential of superconductors is that they carry electricity over large distances with perfect efficiency, having the greatest impact on energy generation, transmission and distribution. If we ever figure out how to produce them cheaply and make them work at room temperature rather than only at hundreds of degrees below zero, it would revolutionize our economy and help save the environment.

Superconductors can also achieve things like powerful magnetic (磁场的) fields in mid-air, enabling new electronic devices, computers and modes of transportation. This technology has been in development in Japan for decades, with maglev trains originally projected to open to the public in 2027, running at speeds up to 375 miles per hour between Tokyo and Nagoya.

The pull of a room-temperature superconductor grows as our economic and environmental picture darkens. It’s the kind of miracle material that could slow climate change while driving global economy, realized new technologies seen in science fiction.

We still don’t know whether the field of superconductivity research will benefit from the new paths opened up by the LK-99 in the last few weeks. It’s a field where theory and experiment have often challenged each other, and our expectations of what is possible have frequently been questioned by what has been observed. Although public interest will no doubt fade for now, an obvious promise remains: a superconducting golden age might be just over the horizon, and the role of science is clear-to find a way to get us there.