LK-99 Research Continues, Paper Says Superconductivity Could Be Possible

Re:LK-99 Research Continues, Paper Says Superconductivity Co... by seanmcdirmid on Sunday October 01, 2023 @08:09AM (#37725149)

Ya, it’s a quality issue. Sort of like with jet turbines: China has no problem producing fast ones, but is not yet able to produce fast ones that don’t need to be overhauled every flight. Or semiconductors: it can produce modern sized chips, but the yields are not good enough to be economically competitive yet. But these are mostly a matter of going through the same 50 years of experimentation of materials and process that other countries did.

For the balls in pens, I think there was one factory in Japan that did that very well, and they had no qualms about exporting them to China at reasonable prices, so China could make pens fine enough, just the ball used in n high quality ones (which, were the ones that would actually sell) used a ball imported from Japan. The minister was angry the pens weren’t 100% Chinese, rather than just 99% Chinese.

One can easily imagine that there are many such components produced in China that other countries aren’t currently tooled to produce economically, so it’s not weird or very unprecedented that China wasn’t previously set up to make perfect balls for pens.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:LK-99 Research Continues, Paper Says Superconductivity Co... by jryle70 on Sunday October 01, 2023 @10:20AM (#37726191)

Yes, basically the incentive wasn't there for China to make the pen ball, not that it was impossible. The same dynamic is in play with bringing back manufacturing to the US. China is the manufacturing center of the world because it's more cost effective to do so there than in other parts of the world, including setting up supply chains. If that incentive is diminished or gone then other places will emerge. It took 20 years for China to get there basically from scratch. It will take much less to rebuild the capabilities in previous manufacturing hubs.

[ Parent | on HN ]