We thought Oppenheimer was the way to instill a love of physics to young people but turns out LK-99 was the way to winning people's hearts and minds to delve more into physics.
LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
501–510 of 659 posts
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#502As I learned from the Dave's EEVBlog video [1], their demonstration video [2] says in the description that the material was deposited onto a copper plate which could probably explain the interaction with the magnet. And as I just noticed, the description has since been changed and now says »The sample was thermally deposited on a enriched uranium 235 plate.« EDIT: Correction, I got the link to the video saying deposi…
Can someone explain why you'd use the 235 isotope? I know there are different magnetic properties but it still seems an odd choice to use something that is highly controlled, difficult to produce, and rather dangerous. It seems like there would be far better choices unless you absolutely need that mass or they very weak valance electrons.
And those videos being identical is also suspicious. [2] Uploaded 2 days ago, claims 235U substrate, is from @q-center, and created their youtube account in 2012. [3] is from @qcentre, uploaded 5 months ago, claims Cu substrate, and created their account in February. If it was the newer account posting the new video it would be easy to believe lost password or something but this reversing feels weird. It makes it feel like they changed the video description (but didn't edit the original to prevent history checking? But could have just uploaded a different video?) to combat the induced magnetic field as claim?
But it feels like it gets even worse. [3] (older) is a 4k video while [2] is 720p. Just hiding detail? The material looks neither like copper nor uranium ceramic (very distinctive orange color), but that can just be the material which is claimed to be thin film deposited and that's believable. Maybe they're hiding the sample identification etching on the front? I'm not sure what those mean and it's very possibly arbitrary. But adds a level of suspicion.
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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
History is littered even more by several orders of magnitudes with nut jobs achieving precisely zilch. If someone seems like a nut job, it's probably because they're actually a nut job, not some misunderstood genius.
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#504I’m just curious as a layman, why aren’t the paper authors helping in this race whatsoever? It seems a lot of folks are guessing on the recipe. I haven’t seen any communication from the LK from LK99. Seems like radio silence
maybe NDA, maybe trade secret. commercialization is a valid reason not to be all too chatty
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
"From a new customer" is the key phrase. This is only a serious issue for amateurs, not for real established labs.
It’s definitely a serious issue for amateurs or new entrants in general but I think it’s conceivable that a capable and legitimate institution might want to or otherwise be able to run the experiment, but they just didnt happen to have red phosphorus.
Yes, but they won't be a new customer to chemical suppliers. If they've ever bought anything DEA List I before (like iodine) they can just pay a few hundred bucks and get a few hundred grams in a couple of days.
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#506This some big leap type world changing stuff if it’s true. I wonder how gas prices would fall if this is true
Gas powered vehicles would be obsolete.
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#507Damn, why is nobody talking more about the theory of it? What I see to ponder: - (1970, brinkman, rice) "application of gutzwiller's variational method to the metal-insulator transition" - (2001, hyun-tak kim) "extension of the brinkman-rice picture and the mott transition" - (2002, hyun-tak kim) "extended brinkman-rice picture and its application to high-Tc superconductors" - (2021, hyun-tak kim) "Room-temperature-s…
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Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#508Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Agreed, if they are unwilling or unable to demonstrate it well, why even bother, why waste viewer's time and attention? A bad/unconvincing/incomplete demonstration is indistinguishable from a scam If they want to show and distribute the capital-T Truth, they need to take their ego out of the equation
lol they're just having fun let them be. She's not trying to claim anything
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#509Earlier quoted context omitted.
The variables that lead to its formation are not all accounted for yet. The process is understood, but it doesn’t always work. So there must be something missing every now and then.
So they have a batch of the material as proof, but no idea how to exactly reproduce it? That would be a wild story if true.
Could the material need to be "seeded" by the proper polymorph?
Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor
#510Earlier quoted context omitted.
Weren't the raw materials lead, copper, sulfur and phosphorous or something like that? Seems hard to to buy out elements that are so common in industrial and chemical processes.
Those are the raw atomic elements, which are not the products you just put into your oven.
There's nothing exotic in there that you can't just buy from Spectrum Chemical (though they need to know you and that you're not likely to be making methamphetamine).