: Pongkaew/Wikimedia Commons)

Every time a new claim comes along that would change the world, the first thing any respectable scientist needs to ask themselves is, “is this claim true?” Perpetual motion machines promise free, unlimited energy, but the problem is that they’re not physically real. It would change the world if planet Earth had been visited by intelligent aliens, but the problem is there exists no good evidence that this has ever occurred. And, similarly, the idea of transmitting electricity with no resistance or heat loss would also change the world. This is physically possible under the conditions of a superconductor — first — but practically, has only been achieved at low temperatures and/or exceedingly high pressures.

Unless, that is, the new claims about a material known as turn out to be true. Theorized, synthesized, and tested by South Korean scientists Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim, they asserting that they had found the first room temperature, ambient pressure superconductor, and had demonstrated both zero resistance and the magnetic levitation phenomenon…