Welcoem to posts!!
in the future - u will be able to do some more stuff here,,,!! like pat catgirl- i mean um yeah... for now u can only see others's posts :c
Good news! High Temperature Superconductors, Inc., the startup I have had the wonderful opportunity of working at these past couple years, has received a $5M grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency, to improve the production of 2nd-gen high temperature superconducting wire in the United States.
~ I’m not a spokesman or representative of the company, just an engineer sharing his perspective with people who enjoy physics. Don’t take anything I say as being more than just a personal opinion about publicly-accessible information. ~
What we are making is a magical material, with truly transformative implications. The wire can carry a supercurrent (imagine an electrically-charged ghost) at magnetic fields that are dozens of times stronger than an MRI machine. This ability has become increasingly valuable in recent years, as many new fusion startups have come onto the scene, and have raised billions of dollars. They all want tens (or hundreds) of thousands of miles of this material, and are willing to pay good money for it, which has spurred the development of HTS wire production in the past couple of years.
Currently, a Russian company called SuperOx is leading the market. But given recent geopolitical events, it would be nice to be able to produce this material domestically. So we’re working on it!
What really excites me about this material is not only the short-term implications for fusion (though that’s extremely exciting, of course), but also the long-term implications of what would happen if the production cost dropped substantially from where it is today.
Currently, the production cost of this material is mostly due to capital depreciation. Lots of custom-built machines, lots of engineering hours going into improving things, replacing parts, figuring things out, etc. That’s just the nature of R&D. But if the fusion industry can kickstart the HTS industry into production at scale, then those costs drop precipitously, as we figure out what works and then just copy/paste it until we’ve changed the global technological landscape. The raw material costs are much smaller by comparison. I.e. it is physically possible to arrange these atoms in a much, much more efficient way than has previously been done.
If the cost drops enough, then the market for this material opens up dramatically, and will have profound implications for energy, healthcare, transportation, spacecraft propulsion, etc. It’s too long a list to type out in detail here.
Very exciting times. A new branch is growing on the tech tree. Feeling a kind of Promethean energy here.
arpa-e.energy.gov/news-and-media/press-releases/us…
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Well, I got most of the way done with Hydrogen Part 2, then realized something: it was super boring to watch! My approach was much too linear, straight up technical procedural deduction from the PDE, a ton of equations without any conceptual payoff until the end. That’s no good!
The power of video is that it can hit you with memorable visual concepts that stick in your brain forever. So I’m redoing the video, starting by visually exploring the eigenstates, applying them to observable phenomena like the hydrogen absorption/emission spectrum, showing the lines with wavelengths to scale, and *then* dissecting the solutions and showing how they emerge from a separation of variables on the original PDE. That approach will, I hope, be much more memorable and helpful than getting stuck in too many mathematical details. And I’ll provide references to various papers, so you can follow up on the details if you want to (I recommend it, and paper is a better medium for getting into the technical details anyway).
So, the video is taking longer than expected, but I think it will turn out well. Better to be slow and good than fast and boring. Thanks everyone for your patience, and for always sending good vibes in the comments — it means a lot :)
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Wow, 1000 subscribers! It has been wonderful to see so much enthusiasm for these videos, and so many kind comments. Thanks everyone! :)
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Getting lots of wonderful feedback on the Fiber Bundle video, thanks! :)
What do you want to see next?
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Hi everyone, I would love to hear your opinion about the direction of this channel. For the next couple weeks I’ll be working on the next gravity video, Part 3, but after that I was thinking of switching up the topic for a while (don’t worry, the gravity series will continue until we are experts in general relativity 😉). But it’ll take a couple years and probably ~30 videos to finish the gravity series, so in the meantime I figure it would be nice to upload other things too. So please let me know what you would like to see next. Thanks!
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I’m very happy to see such a positive response to these videos — thank you! The next gravity video is coming soon, hoping to have it up within a week, and we’ll develop that series over time. But in the meantime I also want to explore quantum mechanics, and other topics. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for videos you’d like to see :)
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My mustang was destroyed by a flash flood in Santa Barbara today at ~1pm. Water was above my seat & I waded three blocks in 3-4 ft of water then ran clear across town in rainstorm & work clothes to my gf’s place. 7 hrs later the water came down enough to tow it.
How was your Monday? 😂
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Math & physics videos. I hope these will be helpful learning resources for college students, good refreshers for professionals in STEM, and philosophically intriguing for those who like to ponder the nature of things :)
If you have a request for a topic, please let me know!
This channel is totally open to the public, so don’t be shy to reach out with video suggestions, or if you have any questions about a topic presented in a video. I want to get better at making videos over time, so I value any and all feedback.
Disclaimer: all statements and opinions posted on this channel are my own, not on behalf of any organization or advertiser.