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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

#461

Post by xxpor »

weard_beard wrote: post #443
VierScar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hope this doesn't end up like a physics equivalent to Fermat's Last Theorem

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

#462

Post by Accujack »

weard_beard wrote: post #446
jimmySixDOF wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 serious…

She's also begging on twitter for people to stop attacking her since it's "getting to" her loved ones.

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

#463

Post by Accujack »

ccity88 wrote: post #2

Iris Alexandra's twitter is especially enthralling. Seems like so much discoveries and innovation happens from computer science to physics, chemistry and biology all from people with anime profile pictures.

She's acknowledged her results were a hoax at this point.

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

#464

Post by foobarian »

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.

It may be unfair to compare to EmDrive; that was not possible under current physics frameworks, while there is no such obvious restriction for superconductors.

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

#465

Post by m463 »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #215

This is a race that I earnestly hope either someone wins quickly, or everyone loses... again rather quickly. For incredible claims you typically require incredible evidence, at the moment we're slightly better than hearsay but we've a long way to go get conclusive proof.

> everyone loses... again rather quickly

that's the thing - if it is hard to manufacture and works maybe 1:10 tries, how can it lose quickly experimentally?

In other words, what is a satisfactory proof that it doesn't work, apart from analyzing the original apparatus?

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

#466

Post by Accujack »

est wrote: post #53

Why does China alone have so many reproduction attemps? I assumed it would be tried everywhere.

China wants to gain a technological edge on all other countries. If they happen to be the first to turn a room temperature superconductor into usable commercial or military materials, then they'll have a huge military or economic advantage for some period of time.

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

#468

Post by plutonorm »

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.

This makes it more believable not less. History is littered with nut jobs achieving. The wilder the story the more credibility I give it. Within bounds. Universe is optimised for entertainment and irony

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

#469

Post by m3kw9 »

cnhajzwgz wrote: post #100
alecst wrote: post #90

I’m not an expert, but I’ve used superconductors (I believe YBCO) when I taught physics lab. We cooled samples down with liquid nitrogen and put them over a magnet. They levitate, but not like in the video that the Korean team released. True superconductors enjoy “flux pinning”, meaning wherever you put them on a magnet, they’ll freeze in that position (or move around an axis of constant flux.) In the LK-99 video tha…

Many experts are indeed questioning the apparent lack of flux pinning and wonder if it's just strong diamagnetism.

I think it would be easy to recognize diamagnetism vs Superconducting and thus these superconducter experts wouldn’t embarrass themselves outing such papers

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

#470

Post by m3kw9 »

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.

Did you read some that said they were amturish or did you actually think that
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