Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

forums.spacebattles.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 659 posts

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

#551

Post by someplaceguy »

jjoonathan wrote: post #170
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The race to the bottom is all around us. You live in SF by chance? Because globally and historically that’s absolutely not what the data says about markets.

Any system that is in control and doesn't actually manage to stop progress can make this claim, monarchies and socialist systems included. Capitalism is very good at maximizing the amount of money available for investment, so it probably is uniquely qualified to make a claim to be the best system for encouraging progress, but just as clearly it aggressively funnels technology down paths that are tuned for maximum val…

> it aggressively funnels technology down paths that are tuned for maximum value extraction

In this context, if you start using the words "creation", "production" or even "availability" rather than "extraction", I think your perspective will change drastically.

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

#552

Post by foven »

psychphysic wrote: post #524
FriedPickles wrote: post #515

Everybody's talking about reproducing the material which is great, but will take time. Why don't the authors supply their existing material to an independent lab for earlier confirmation?

If they really believe they have the only sample they won't let it out of their sight most likely. It'll be superconducting tomorrow if it's really superconducting today.

Not necessarily true. Complex compounds can be susceptible to oxidisation and generally decay and degrade over time.

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

#555

Post by foven »

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 stop promoting this ateapie loonie. Every post they made is so thick with narrative it is completely divorced from reality.

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

#556

Post by wddkcs »

Retric wrote: post #444
DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Evolution caught using planned obsolescence

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

#558

Post by semi-extrinsic »

dmitrybrant wrote: post #497
plutonorm wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you give an example? I'm struggling to think of historical comparisons. I suppose I can think of a couple of "unlikely" achievers: - Ramanujan: if he lived today, I could imagine him tweeting some awesome infinite series, which could be verified easily by other mathematicians. - ...maybe Tesla? But he had a solid track record of invention before becoming a nut job. But who else?

Not that I agree with GP, but:

Isaac Newton? Brian Josephson, certainly. Francis Crick. Werner Forssmann. Marie and Pierre Curie, the way they kept on working even when dying from radiation poisoning. Tycho Brahe (with the partying and the drunken pet elk). Pythagoras. Probably Paul Erdosz? And a good number of the people working on energetic materials research.

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

#559

Post by addisonl »

namuol wrote: post #553

So much speculation but I don’t see anyone asking this: Who has access to samples from the original lab? If synthesis hasn’t been cracked yet, wouldn’t the next-best thing be independent validation of the original samples?

This has been asked over and over again in this thread.

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

#560

Post by idopmstuff »

dcow wrote: post #528
lolinder wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > How do you know for sure that the existing sample was actually produced by the LK-99 process? > If the thing exists and someone can make it, the specific process doesn't matter (but also why would they make it, publish a fake process and then go through all this rigamarole?). You took one sentence out of context, reinterpreted it, then replied to your own reinterpretation. In the context of the full "if" sentence…

I didn't reinterpret anything and I don't think what you state as pretty clear is entirely clear to me (or I just didn't read into it as deeply). Anyway I simply responded with some reasons why one might publish a fake process and go through all the rigamarole. I probably should have quoted the sentence in my reply to avoid confusion.

I'm the one who posted the comment you're referring to, and the poster you're responding to has it correct.

> but also why would they make it, publish a fake process and then go through all this rigamarole?

That was what I said, and here you're saying "Anyway I simply responded with some reasons why one might publish a fake process and go through all the rigamarole." You ignored the first part of the sentence - I didn't ask why they'd publish a fake process, I asked why they would make it (it being a room temp superconductor) and then publish a fake process.

Post reply on HN