When I told my wife about this, all she replied was how it's gonna be monopolized by big countries/big tech and our third world country like ours will never use it.
It's a point, but well human need to push the limit, no matter what.
"Never" is a strong word - smartphones were once monopolized by rich countries, but are now a worldwide phenomenon. Even explicitly-banned/controlled technologies like nuclear weapons managed to eventually diffuse around the world.
Yes, it is never absolute. But I get her points, always mean majority. Like for her I am always late for dinner. The days that I was early does not count, even if it's like 20%.
When I told my wife about this, all she replied was how it's gonna be monopolized by big countries/big tech and our third world country like ours will never use it.
The materials and hardware required to make LK-99 are within the reach of a high school. It's really simple and doesn't require anything more than a very hot oven (hotter than a domestic one, but still very common). If it'd turned out to be a real superconductor anyone who wanted to make it could have done.
I'm not sure about that. So many people had hard time synthesizing LK-99, and the original researchers said that even for themselves only 1 out of 10 attempts to create a material succeeded.
The pure LK-99 crystals pictured in the article were obtained using more advanced technique: "Unlike previous synthesis attempts that relied on crucibles, the researchers used a technique called floating zone crystal growth that allowed them to avoid introducing sulfur into the reaction, eliminating the Cu2S impurities."
But I agree that if there's money to be made, it will be available world wide quickly.
When I explained to her the potential if it truly was the breakthrough being reported, her first reaction was:
"I hope we establish a government agency to regulate everything floating around because I don't want to get bumped into by random stuff".