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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

#441

Post by local_issues »

bhouston wrote: post #111
ssijak wrote: post #66

For such an important discovery (if it is real), that seems it could be replicated in a few days, if I were the team that did the discovery, I would create a video recording of the whole process and all the measurements and share it with the textual article. It sounds like that would provide for an easier way to replicate plus more proofs of the discovery.

The team that did the discovery seems disorganized and amateurish though, and with the multiple papers all submitted at the same time by competing factions, riff with infighting - but they stuck with a hunch for longer than anyone else and followed it doggedly. If it turns out to be true, it will be a great movie with an underdog making one of the biggest discoveries of the century.

>discovery seems disorganized and amateurish though, and with the multiple papers all submitted at the same time by competing factions, riff with infighting - but they stuck with a hunch for longer than anyone else and followed it doggedly.

Pretty good description of all of human history so far, to be fair

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

#442

Post by local_issues »

bananapub wrote: post #311
m00dy wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

welcome to the new world...It is fast, efficient and very interesting...

it's not fast or efficient - the authors appear to think they invented a very easy to make room temperature/pressure superconductor far over a year ago, and then announced it in a truly silly way with no clear data and no samples.

Materials going from concept -> public testing in less than 200 years is fucking shocking in the scale of human history.

When did the Chinese invent gunpowder? What about the discovery of uranium? The rate of attention span decrease is much greater than the still shocking increase in rate of discoveries.

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

#443

Post by weard_beard »

VierScar wrote: post #11
aqme28 wrote: post #6

Been following this very closely. Seems like the one takeaway is that whatever material this is, it's interesting. It's also difficult to synthesize in bulk, which is a shame because superconductivity is not easy to observe in non-bulk materials (think: powder). Note: I have a physics degree and a little bit of condensed matter experience, but nothing like anyone actually working in the field. Just some graduate cour…

Why is it hard to make in bulk? I thought the chemicals were easy and cheap to obtain, and then you bake it at a high temp? What makes it difficult?

The first time it demonstrated superconductivity they dropped the quartz tube it was in, cracking and accidentally oxidizing it at a specific point in the heating process and providing vibration that caused the formation of a crystal structure in the material.

That's... not easily replicable.

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

#444

Post by Retric »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #34
ant6n wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing more revolutionary than a discovery of a new class of materials. After all, we often name eras throughout our history after them :) (Stone age, etc) I wonder what was involved in the discovery of stone.

There are many different types of stones, and techniques for shaping them became progressively more sophisticated over time. With instruction, it would probably take you less than an hour to learn how to make the types of simple chopping stones that human ancestors used 1 million years ago. However, it takes much more considerable time and skill to learn how to make the types of stone tools humans were using 100k yea…

It just occurred to me that this might relate to why people get near sighted with age. An old tool maker may no longer be as productive in hunting and gathering but instead masters his or her craft thus aiding the tribe.

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

#445

Post by Qworg »

bluerooibos wrote: post #435
ant6n wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's nothing more revolutionary than a discovery of a new class of materials. After all, we often name eras throughout our history after them :) (Stone age, etc) I wonder what was involved in the discovery of stone.

2023, the beginning of the... Room Temperature Superconductor Age!

The RTS Age has a good ring to it.

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

#446

Post by weard_beard »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #402
echelon wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the best state of affairs sum up at the moment and my favorite plot line is the soil scientist. https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1685960703658860544?s=19

Can we put this LARPing scam artist out of the conversation? They are setting up a bitcoin wallet to, "raise money" to post a video of their admitted non-replication (They didn't use the original replication steps at all), but still superconducting result using kitchen cookware?

Also they spend more time promoting bizarre Soviet propaganda, furry porn, and LARPing than science.

Please, can we stop taking this seriously?

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

#447

Post by whatshisface »

dmitrybrant wrote: post #370
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…

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, do…

If 1000 people with geeky interests all try to make this stuff I would be surprised if one did not get lucky with the variations in their uncontrolled home lab environment and hit the perfect sequence for making a grain of it... unless the material does not exist; but honestly if you want to hear the opinion of some person on the internet, I think that it is real.

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

#448

Post by jamilton »

morelisp wrote: post #171
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are people getting away with exactly? Prediction markets more rapidly expose fraud and misinformation than without them. Generally the decision to list a market or contract is based on providing specific utility and information. They provide a better signal to noise and therefore provide risk management as well. The fact you believe markets are a “partisan” topic illustrates exactly the problem. They are objecti…

Exposing fraud you created the environment for is not particularly interesting.

I don't understand, how do prediction markets create the environment for fraud?

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

#449

Post by ChuckMcM »

aqme28 wrote: post #6

Been following this very closely. Seems like the one takeaway is that whatever material this is, it's interesting. It's also difficult to synthesize in bulk, which is a shame because superconductivity is not easy to observe in non-bulk materials (think: powder). Note: I have a physics degree and a little bit of condensed matter experience, but nothing like anyone actually working in the field. Just some graduate cour…

Yup, and the "preprint" (which doesn't have a number of controls in the process) leaves a lot to be desired, so the "real" paper will presumably have some of this worked out.

I expect things like the cooling rate (which affects crystal growth) and oxidation will both have variability in them.

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

#450

Post by baq »

jimmySixDOF wrote: post #402
echelon wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is the best state of affairs sum up at the moment and my favorite plot line is the soil scientist. https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1685960703658860544?s=19

> She posts her kitchen chemistry process over the weekend, at arrives at 2 confirmed Meissner effect levitation stones, beating all other public teams. She posts the pics on Twitter and begins to indulge in her favorite hobby, insulting the intelligence of westerners.

Editorialized, but quite close.

The original thread is one of the best on Twitter. The character of the Soviet anime lesbian kitchen chemist dropping some amazing lines in between posting pics of casually cooking a superconductor is just chef’s kiss. I don’t even need it to be true, got my money’s worth.

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