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Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

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Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#401

Post by cmrdporcupine »

thepasswordis wrote: post #67
archepyx wrote: post #47

Another comment from a well informed source on the topic: https://nitter.net/condensed_the/status/1684255515944034304 Also, on the sentences in the manuscripts trying to explain the effect: I think that is wild guess at best. The measurement results done in the manuscripts probably can be taken at at face value (at least until there is a reproduction). Whether they really indicate superconductivity or something else…

It's probably better to link to the original, not this mirror: https://twitter.com/condensed_the/status/1684255515944034304

Twitter is not a publicly available resource, not part of the open web: Its URLs are semi-private and require an account to fully read and they should not be posted here on HN.

For almost two weeks they were fully locked, and now one can only see the original post and not the thread, and all browsing is locked out.

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#402

Post by hackeraccount »

The_Double wrote: post #392

The strangest thing to me is that apparently this material has been developed years ago, the video of a piece floating was uploaded 3 months ago, and apparently it's easy to produce more samples, but the papers still reads like they have been thrown together in less than a week. (English might not be their first language, but the presentation of the figures is also poor) And it also seems like they haven't spent that…

It seems weird because it's a big leap but big leaps do happen.

If it is a misrepresentation I'd be curious about the back story. I mean, even if it's not been knowingly done it will presumably seriously hurt the careers of the people involved; if it is knowingly I assume it will be "find a job in another field" kind of thing.

How could you suspect it wouldn't come out if it's knowingly? If un-knowingly how could you make an amazing claim like this without being absolutely sure of what's going on? If it's a "rush to publish" type thing - why wouldn't you make a big point of that in the paper (i.e. load it with caveats to the brim)? Plus this comment makes it sounds like it's been sat on for at least what seems to me like a fair amount of time.

All the options seem implausible but at the end of the day one of them must be the case. For the sake of everyone I'm pulling that it is what it says on the tin.

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#403

Post by lolc »

mrguyorama wrote: post #108
Analemma_ wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Room-temperature superconductors have so many urgent commercial uses that if this fake, I doubt the error will persist for that long. There's too much at stake.

There's also probably a hundred labs skipping over replication completely to try and beat someone else out on a random permutation of these materials and methods and hoping to get lucky.

I can't see why they'd skip replication given the uncertain status of the original process. They'd try to replicate as closely as possible, confirm they have a superconducting material, then they'd branch out from their established process. Starting from a variation means they don't know whether it doesn't work because of the variation or because it doesn't work at all.

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#404

Post by RyanAdamas »

What if the team itself did create LK-99 that is a superconductor, but they aren't able to reproduce it and only have the sample left that works. Hence, they aren't able to make more of it to prove their success, but rather decided to release the paper and method so that others can try to reproduce it. Given the amount of interest, they could put hundreds of labs to work trying to recreate what they themselves can't, hoping someone will find what they found and have an actual process for doing so?

Is that even possible?

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#405

Post by beowulfey »

stu255 wrote: post #395
beowulfey wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone who speaks Korean may have to go through the original paper. It is LK-99 though; I wonder if they tried 99 other combinations first!

No, Lee and Kim first discovered the material in 1999 and have spent 20 years doing other things in between getting help to figure out how to isolate LK-99 and reproduce the correct grain structure. They eventually got a world class physical chemist, Kwon. There is now a huge bust up within the team, hence the muddled race to publish and claim credit.

Ahh that makes sense. I was wondering what was going on with the two papers and thought it might be something like that too. Thanks for the extra details.

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#406

Post by hackeraccount »

ckemere wrote: post #194
mataslauzadis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the elements used here is phosphorus (P) which is regulated by the DEA in the United States, and can't just be purchased online

Probably ATF, not DEA. DEA regulates controlled substances. ATF regulates explosives.

Wonder element phosphorus can be used for both!

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#407

Post by [deleted] »

doctorwho42 wrote: post #316
burtonator wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want ONE breakthrough like this in my lifetime. Something completely game changing.

Live to see SPARC turn on, there are some pretty smart people with models actually showing it breaking Q>3. Turns out the hardest part about productive fusion is the sustained high compression, and HTC tape really helps increase the compression by a large amount. (See their 20 Tesla test at the start of the pandemic)

[deleted]

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#408

Post by wiredfool »

hinkley wrote: post #327
bradyd wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They even make spokes that are rope https://berdspokes.com/pages/technology

I wonder if those have less or more breakin issues compared to spokes. With a spoke you have to reset the angle of the bend to the shortest distance between the hub and the rim. But with cables they have to settle in along their entire length. Doesn’t change the answer. They’re still compressing. They’re just pretensioned.

There's a lot more creep early on, which is compensated for by a staged tensioning over the course of a few days. They may require the spoke holes in the hub to be radiused, which can be a warranty issue between you and the hub manufacturer. Windup is controlled by a flat on the small bit of spoke used for threads.

They're ok (i.e., made it through Tour Divide with no issues), done well they're certainly better than badly done steel spokes, but it's not clear if the best builds are better than the best steel builds.

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#409

Post by tonyarkles »

rob74 wrote: post #399
stu255 wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% of aluminium supply is from recycling aluminium products. The economy sort of has a "working capital" quantum of aluminium which also grows steadily from aluminium mining. Lots of metals have very different and complex supply structures and thus completely different $$$ / volume curves for their supply. Understanding the $$$ / volume curve of commodities is not something that is commonly considered when people tr…

Now I'm curious where that recycled aluminium is coming from? My guess would be mostly from airplanes and beverage cans...

Engine blocks too. If you go to a scrap yard though you’ll be pretty amazed at all of the stuff they’ve got collected and sorted. Metal recycling (compared to, say, electronics recycling or plastic recycling) has a very clear economic model and financial incentives. If you’re demolishing a building or scrapping old machinery it will cost significantly less to recycle the metal (because you get paid decently by the pound) than to take it to a landfill (where you pay by the pound instead).

Re: Superconductor news: What’s claimed, and how strong the evidence seems to be

#410

Post by bluGill »

rob74 wrote: post #398
shirleyquirk wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not come as a complete surprise that the economics of metals are more complex. Aluminium, was so expensive until the Hall/(that other guy) process was developed, that it was used for jewellery [1]. Even today it's expensive and difficult to reduce Al ore to metal, which is a supply side problem. [1] https://www.bellandbird.com/products/aluminum-bangle

TIL! Aluminium is an extremely useful metal, but I would never have thought it would be used for jewelry - I mean, it's not enough for the metal to be expensive, it also has to look and feel desirable, which soft and dull Aluminium definitely doesn't. If you have ever held Aluminium cutlery in your hand, it just feels cheap compared to stainless steel (not to mention silver).

Today it isn't used for jewelry. 200 years ago it was - not so much to wear, but to show off that you were rich enough to afford it. Only royalty could afford things made out of aluminum.
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