For what it’s worth I just learned this from chatgpt. But the magnet is a superconducting electromagnet, and it’s started up by cooling the superconducter to around 4 Kelvin, and then electricity is turned on, and then once it’s going at the desired current, there is some kind of superconducting switch that disconnects the power source. After that no more power is supplied to the magnet—it will run with that same current for years, as long as you keep it cold enough to be super conducting. Apparently the resistance is actually truly zero, not just almost zero.
So there is no current to turn off. The current in the magnet is running on its own from when it was first supplied. The only way to stop it is to heat up the superconductor.
I thought maybe you could draw it off and use it up somewhere else, but then if I’m remembering right electricity will always take the last of least resistance, so none of it would leave a superconductor. Right?
It also makes me wonder, if someone is ever able to build a warm superconductor, how would we ever stop electricity we’ve put into a system like that?
I wrote 100% of my post myself. There’s no bragging going on. I’m warning people that I learned it from chatgpt so they know it may not be trustworthy. Still in my experience the vast majority of what I learn from ChatGPT/gemini/claude is correct, and in this kind of case where the knowledge is interesting but not something I’m going to need to rely on for anything, the benefits of quickly learning are so high for me that I thought someone else might appreciate it too. I’m sorry if I offended you.
> the vast majority of what I learn from ChatGPT/gemini/claude is correct
Roughly 90% according to benchmarks. Which means you're learning 10% bullshit.
> the benefits of quickly learning are so high for me that I thought someone else might appreciate it too
ChatGPT has been there for two and a half years already, of course everyone on this forum knows about it, you don't have to tell people how cool it is… Rather you can safely assume that if someone asks a question here, and not as a ChatGPT prompt, it means they doesn't want an answer from ChatGPT!
I didn’t give you an answer from chatgpt. I’m not telling anyone how cool it is. I’ve been here for years and I’m well aware of the level of exposure to LLMs there is for people on HN .
I did give out a warning to people that I had learned something from chatgpt, not from some other source, so they could take it for what it was worth.
I’m so tired of seeing people in other forums try to help someone and having someone give them a shit response. One thing I like about HN is the fact that that doesn’t happen much here. I still think what I wrote in response to your question was helpful and thoughtful. Back up a minute and just think it over, please.
I’d love to see which benchmarks you’re talking about, and if they apply to all three of those specific LLMs, and which version of their models, and if they differentiate topics. My guess is that in the case of LLM output that is a response to a purely factual question, or a response to a question asking a technological question where I present it with something I know occurs but want to know the means by which it occurs, the amount of hallucination is much less than 10%. And if you have some background in the area you are asking about, you can easily filter out some of what is hallucinated, making the learned material well about 90%. But I’m just guessing based on my experience of asking LLMs a lot of questions about both things I already know quite well and others that I don’t. So, which benchmarks are you talking about?
There is some small losses, it does not run 'forever'.
However the superconducting switch is pretty neat. It's a small section of superconductor between the ends of the coil, but is wrapped in a heating element. When the coils is first powered up the element is heated and the material has a resistance. When the coil is ready the heating element is turned off and the shorted conductor cools down and starts superconducting.
So there is no current to turn off. The current in the magnet is running on its own from when it was first supplied. The only way to stop it is to heat up the superconductor.
I thought maybe you could draw it off and use it up somewhere else, but then if I’m remembering right electricity will always take the last of least resistance, so none of it would leave a superconductor. Right?
It also makes me wonder, if someone is ever able to build a warm superconductor, how would we ever stop electricity we’ve put into a system like that?