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LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

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Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#361

Post by ChrisClark »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #345
n2d4 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but what's stopping a random internet anon from gluing a crumb onto a pipette and taking a picture of it? Nothing, just like nothing would stop a random internet anon from faking a video of the same thing. Even if that existed, it still wouldn't be sufficient evidence (especially given this is a different synthesis than the one in the paper), it would just be much more overblown. Wait for lab reconstructions, or at…

"I don't do videos of things I intend to be writing a text from. Ever. It's bad tone. I hate when it happens to me, and I don't want anyone to share this fate" Ah, yes. The good old incoherent "here's why I can't do something totally normal" excuse. Looking through their tweet history, they're an insufferable and toxic troll.

They seem to block anyone that doesn't agree that the USSR, despite not existing anymore, is still pushing progress worldwide.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#362

Post by yreg »

andersa wrote: post #163
heliophobicdude wrote: post #159

I've been live following this thread: https://twitter.com/iris_igb/status/1685731177523449856

This thread is super frustrating. The person posting it does not at all seem interested in actually demonstrating the effect works... how can you have such a sample and only post this one image which could easily be created by gluing a pebble to the glass? Where's the video of it in action! I want this material to be real so badly.

I think it's an obvious fake, the account is trolling on multiple fronts.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#363

Post by jacquesm »

oneshtein wrote: post #350
jacquesm wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying it is 35K, I'm saying it is at least 35K and probably much higher. Whether it is closer to room temperature or not is not relevant, when someone says 'room temperature' they are talking about 21 degrees Celsius plus or minus a couple, not above the temperature where any kind of solid matter exists. Even tungsten, which melts at 3422 degrees C and boils at the magic number of 5555 C is just vapor at tha…

As you can see, the apparatus didn't evaporate while working, so, probably, temperature is much lower.

It didn't evaporate because it is constructed carefully not to, but that doesn't mean it isn't blazing hot, just like the gas burner on your stove can be made out of aluminum which would be melted by the flame if it ever became mis-aligned.

But that doesn't mean the flame has a temperature lower than the melting point of aluminum, it just means that whoever designed it knew enough to ensure that the aluminum is never exposed to more than that it can handle in spite of being in close proximity to something that is able to melt it instantly. The biggest factors there are flame shape, stand-off and cooling effect of the gas supply itself.

Note that when you casually write 'plasma' that you are talking about material that is so hot that it has shed all of its electrons, it is just the nuclei that you're looking at and if it so much as touches anything at all it will waltz right through it as if it isn't there. See also: plasma cutters[1] for a nice demonstration of what happens when you use these facts to your advantage. But for things like plasma based fusion they are a very tricky problem because you have to maintain the plasma while simultaneously extracting energy from it.

The device shown in the video is very, very nice and well engineered, it is amazing that they got it work as well as they did with such simplicity but the process is eminently unsuitable for energy generation as far as I understand this stuff, keeping the plasma stable and cooling the whole thing uses many kilowatts. It's an improvement over a linear accelerator or a tokamak for the production of short lived nucleotides it is not an energy generating device.

[1] Plasma cutters also don't instantly disintegrate the cutting tip, that's because they blow copious air through the nozzle to keep the hot plasma away from the tip itself and to direct it onto the workpiece that you are cutting. But woe to you if your air pressure unexpectedly drops.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#365

Post by throwawaymaths »

echelon wrote: post #292
Ajedi32 wrote: post #274

Whether or not this turns out to be real the whole incident has been extremely entertaining, way more than I would have expected. Replication attempts being documented in real time on Twitter and livestreamed on Twitch, news about infighting and drama among the researchers who published the paper, constant fluxations in the betting markets as new news comes out. It's been a wild ride.

It's a lot like the EmDrive incident, except replication attempts are easier. Both are strange discoveries that are poised to change the world as we know it. Hopefully this one turns out, unlike the EmDrive.

You might be excited about ivo quantum drive that is going to be tested in space, NET October

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#366

Post by Regnore »

sterlind wrote: post #351
eropple wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are good examples of their “disbenefits”? Overwhelmingly unaddressed externalities.

Prediction markets seem blessedly free of externalities though, compared to, say, the energy market (CO2) or textiles (child labor, sweatshops.) except for incentivizing action to tilt the odds, which is weirdly amoral. if you bet on a bad thing happening, you can cash in by making it happen yourself.

Feeding gambling addictions is the one big externality that comes to mind.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#367

Post by jamesmaniscalco »

zarzavat wrote: post #129
dawnofdusk wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Type-II super conductors may exhibit "flux pinning". Type-I super conductors do not.

As far as I understand it (not an expert on these things), flux pinning is caused by microscopic defects that allow the magnetic field to penetrate at certain points. An idealized superconductor that is perfectly uniform expels the magnetic field at all points and so would not display the effect, it would simply be diamagnetic. So it’s mistaken and somewhat perverse to view the absence of flux pinning as proof that s…

No defects needed for flux penetration in a type-II superconductor. When the conference length is smaller than the penetration depth (up to a factor of sqrt(2)), flux vortices can nucleate as soon as the surface magnetic field gets above the lower critical field Bc1.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#368

Post by killerstorm »

ummonk wrote: post #92
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #20

Saw some people hyping up markets where people are betting on prediction markets whether or not LK-99 will replicate. Can't help but feel like that money would be better spent just paying off some labs to actually try to replicate the process. The response I got from a predictions market enthusiast was that having a sufficiently large market would motivate people to attempt to have the process replicated and buy opti…

It's worse than that. If you've confirmed results, you now have an incentive not to publish your results, instead building up a market position on prediction markets for as long as possible.

No. You're incentivized to build a market prosition on prediction markets, or sell your information to somebody who can. (E.g. if a lab has a replication proof it might partner with a trading firm to maximize their profit.)

But there's definitely no incentive to do it "for as long as possible". E.g. once the trader gets into a favorable position, they are incentivized to reveal their information ASAP to be able to take profit.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#369

Post by jacquesm »

jjoonathan wrote: post #314
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth, not much, but me personal believe that you believe that without evidence and primary due to the propaganda governments have fed you to scapegoat the evil “capitalists” and markets as a way to deflect blame for serious problems away from themselves. Governments need to regulate to prevent harm, we all agree. Yet they claim it’s the markets doing it! No, markets do what is most efficient and optima…

Funny, I think that you believe what you do without evidence primarily due to the propaganda spread by the wealthy elite that own and control the system and want to deflect blame for serious problems away from themselves by blaming the government. The private sector is bigger than the public sector, both in terms of dollar expenditure and in terms of political power. Politicians have to be vetted by rich people (the…

> Capitalism is great at growth and terrible at stewardship. It wins a land grab but it leaves behind a nasty class structure. Is it worth it? I have no idea. I just try to win. I'm a lot less certain than I used to be, though.

I think we're roughly on the same page. The interesting part about capitalism is that it scales fantastically, for a while and as long as the bills aren't due you can improve your standard of living and those around you considerably. But some day those bills will be presented, it can be during your generation, your kids or two or three down the line. And that's when you find out about the stewardship component. But by then it is too late. It's a study in how local optimization can cause global catastrophe.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#370

Post by dmitrybrant »

n2d4 wrote: post #304
dmitrybrant wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "demonstration" is a photo of a single crumb of material inside a transparent pipette. It's claimed that the crumb is "levitating" inside the pipette, but what's stopping a random internet anon from gluing a crumb onto a pipette and taking a picture of it? I don't know about you, but if I had just succeeded in replicating a literally history-making experiment, I would perhaps take a video of it, and demonstrate h…

>but what's stopping a random internet anon from gluing a crumb onto a pipette and taking a picture of it? Nothing, just like nothing would stop a random internet anon from faking a video of the same thing. Even if that existed, it still wouldn't be sufficient evidence (especially given this is a different synthesis than the one in the paper), it would just be much more overblown. Wait for lab reconstructions, or at…

Don't get me wrong, I want to believe (tm) as much as anyone, but this particular part of the story has a lot working against it:

* This person is anonymous (account created in Apr 2023), so we don't know anything about their affiliation or credentials.

* They do seem to have good knowledge of materials science (although I have no way to judge), but the rest of their twitter history, which is all we have to go on, doesn't inspire confidence.

* This person decided to replicate this experiment on a whim, as a distraction (because they couldn't stream a movie that night, according their tweets), while serious labs around the world have been trying frantically for several days, without any results.

* This person refuses to submit a video ("bad tone") or any additional footage of their achievement, despite it being the most unique and world-changing compound on the planet.

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