Material Empire

Tranquility replied: "There are many ways to use thermal power and hydropower. Solar energy and wind energy have now entered practical use. There are also tidal power stations. As far as I know, there are already successful experimental power stations. You are talking about these ?"

"No, no, that's not what I'm talking about." Ka'an shook his head with a smug expression on his face, "These methods are already considered traditional methods, and my ideas are more advanced than them."

"Then we can only fight lightning..." Tranquility couldn't help laughing. Qin Hai told her a joke that a group of residents on a small island were against nuclear power, hydropower, and thermal power, and finally shouted A slogan spelling lightning. Tranquility always thought it was just a joke, presumably the man in front of him would not have such an idea, would he?

Unexpectedly, as soon as she said the words, the man's eyes lit up. He raised his hand, a little bit wanting to hold Tranquility's hand, and shouted something like "I've found an organization". It is reasonable to know the consequences of pulling the hand of a strange lady in public. He rubbed his hands in a concealed manner, and then asked, "How did you guess that?"

"I sell cake!" Tranquility blurted out an English interjection, "Sir, you don't really want to use lightning to solve energy problems, do you?"

"Why not?" Ka'an retorted without even thinking about it: "There are 60 billion lightning strikes in the world every year, and the energy of one lightning is calculated as 100 kilowatt-hours. The energy of lightning in one year is equivalent to 6 trillion kilowatt-hours. It is equivalent to half of the world's annual power generation and can be used by 20 Brazils. Why can't such a large amount of energy be utilized?"

"This..." Tranquility was suddenly dumbfounded by Ka'an's words. She wanted to say that the accounts were not calculated in this way, but she didn't know where to refute. Ideas about lightning collection are often seen in some middle school students' publications in China, but people who are really engaged in scientific research dismiss it. As for the specific reason, I really can't think of it for a while.

"Beautiful lady, you will understand after listening to my introduction." Seeing Ning Jing's hesitant look, Ka'an was elated, and eagerly pointed to a bench for customers to rest, and said, "Please sit down, I'll show you some materials."

"Okay." Tranquility thought that she had nothing to do, and it would be interesting to listen to this folk scientist. From the fact that the other party was able to accurately tell the frequency, energy, and global power generation of lightning and other data, it can be seen that this person is not an absolute "civilian", but still has some common sense.

The two walked to the bench and sat down separately. Ka'an took out a stack of materials from a large leather bag that he carried with him, stuffed them into Tranquility's hands, and said, "Look, this is the drawing of the lightning collection system I drew. Of course, this is just Franklin's work." It is just a replica of the previous experiment, nothing new. In this system, the most critical are two links, the wire and the energy storage system. All current lightning collection systems cannot be put into practice because of these two bottlenecks.”

Tranquility involuntarily took the blueprint that Ka'an handed over, and after a closer look, she couldn't help but gain a new understanding of Ka'an. This drawing is very professional, without all the mysteries that ordinary "minke" likes to make, but a technical schematic diagram that can be understood at a glance. On this diagram, she accidentally saw a word she was very familiar with:

Superconducting!

"You mean, the wire needs to use a superconductor?" Tranquility turned her head, looked at Ka'an seriously and asked.

"Yes, you are very professional!" Ka'an said happily, "I have checked relevant information, and the voltage of lightning can reach hundreds of millions of volts at the highest, and the current intensity can reach tens of thousands of amperes. If other wires are used, it will Therefore, the first key factor of the lightning collection system is to use superconductors as the wires for lightning, so that the electric energy can be transmitted to the energy storage device without loss.”

Tranquility said: "But superconducting materials can only work at low temperatures, which means you have to keep the superconducting wires in the middle of liquid nitrogen, and the cost of keeping the wires at low temperatures is far higher than the electricity you collect. worth it."

"Yes, you are right!" Kaan said. As a civilian scientist, he has sold his ideas to people more than ten thousand times, but he has never met such a serious and professional audience as Tranquility. He suddenly became excited. He pointed at the blueprint with his thin fingers, and said: "This is the biggest obstacle to establishing a lightning collection system, but the existence of this obstacle is entirely because the current research on superconductivity has completely gone astray. If it continues, superconductivity research will have no future.”

One sentence directly made Tranquility to Lei Dewai Jiao Linen. This man really deserves to be a researcher of thunder and lightning, and his words are full of thunder. Tranquility thought to herself that she could be regarded as the top authority in the field of superconductivity, how could she allow a private scientist to utter such wild words in front of her.

"Mr. Ka'an, you said that the current superconductivity research has gone astray, can you make it clearer?" Tranquility asked.

"Of course." Kaan said confidently, "yttrium barium copper oxide is currently the most popular superconducting material, and almost all superconducting scientists are focusing on this material. However, its structure determines this It is impossible for materials to break through the liquid nitrogen temperature zone, and it is even more impossible to achieve room temperature superconductivity. In addition, the mechanical properties of yttrium barium copper oxide are too poor, and it is difficult to process them into free-form wires..."

"Wait, Mr. Ka'an, I would like to ask, have you ever done research on superconductivity?" Tranquility interrupted Ka'an and asked in surprise. Kaan's statement just now is very professional, and it is definitely not something that a layman can say casually.

Sure enough, Kaan proudly patted his chest and said: "I have been engaged in the research of conductive materials for nearly 30 years, and I have also been involved in yttrium-barium-copper-oxygen superconducting materials. It is precisely because of the research on superconducting materials that I turned my interest to For lightning collection, I think that superconductivity is the key to solving the problem of lightning collection, but all the research of scholars has gone in the wrong direction.”

"So, what do you think is the right direction?" Tranquility asked Ka'an suppressing the shock in her heart.

"Iron-based materials!" Kaan said decisively, "I think we should abandon copper-based materials and look for iron-based superconducting materials, and obtain superconductors with higher temperature and better mechanical properties by doping other elements in iron elements." .”

Tranquility looked into Ka'an's eyes seriously, and she suspected that Ka'an was acting. However, what she saw was a persistent and confident look. If it was fake, it could only be said that Kaan's acting skills were too high. Tranquility was silent for a few seconds, and then said: "It is impossible for magnetic substances to have high-temperature superconductivity. This is an authoritative opinion. Your thinking is wrong."

Tranquility's words are deceitful. Magnetic substances cannot have high-temperature superconductivity. Indeed, it used to be an authoritative view, but with the advent of iron-based superconducting materials, this view has been self-defeating. And what overthrows this point of view is precisely Tranquility itself. The reason why she said this in front of Kaan was to test how much Kaan knew about superconductivity research. It is obvious that iron-based superconductors have been available for several years, and he still regards this as his great foresight, which is a bit abnormal .

"Miss, the authoritative point of view you mentioned is not necessarily the truth." Kaan blushed, and put on a posture that he planned to argue 300 times. He was so paranoid that he didn't even think about it. Why? The young girl in front of me was able to speak so professionally. If he thought about it a little more, he should at least ask Tranquility's teacher.

"There is not only one mechanism of superconductivity. Through the scattering of electrons on the Fermi surface, superconductivity should also be produced. This characteristic is exactly the characteristic of traditional metal conduction. If the existence of this superconductivity can be proved , the research on room temperature superconducting materials will be just around the corner!" Kaan said eloquently.

Tranquility's eyes were rounded. What Ka An said was exactly the research results of her, Chen Zongze and others. Judging from Kaan's narration, he doesn't understand the dynamics of the superconducting field in recent years, and he doesn't even know that iron-based superconducting materials have come out. However, under such circumstances, he was able to accurately describe the mechanism of iron-based superconductivity. It is conceivable that if he is given certain experimental conditions, he can completely independently manufacture iron-based superconductors.

This is a big bull who is no less than Chen Zongze! Tranquility commented in her heart. Although she herself is the discoverer of iron-based superconductivity, she knows that this discovery is largely due to Qin Hai's prompt, and Qin Hai's thinking comes from some inexplicable epiphany. In terms of people who can really predict iron-based superconductivity theoretically, Tranquility has only met two people, one is her mentor Chen Zongze, and the other is the nagging Ka'an in front of her.

"Mr. Ka'an, since you have such an idea, why don't you verify it through experiments? If you can prove the existence of iron-based superconducting materials through experiments, wouldn't it be stronger than standing here and telling me the truth?" Tranquility asked suspiciously.

Saying this sentence, Ka'an immediately looked like a deflated rubber toy, and the bastard air all over his body disappeared immediately. He faltered for a long time before he said in a low voice: "Because of the promotion of lightning collection, I was dismissed from my teaching position by them, and the police station also confiscated my property, so... now I can only be like this..."

"Because of promoting thunder and lightning network ideas, your property was confiscated?" Tranquility was even more surprised. There is clearly no relationship between the two, okay? Could it be that Lao Ka connected a wire to the police station and hacked the police station? up?

Seeing Tranquility's puzzled look, Ka'an sighed and talked about his sad past.