171–180 of 389 posts
So exciting! Just FYI, the wikipedia page for LK-99 has a very useful tracking grid of replication attempts with sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK-99
Edit: I read 100 K as 100°c. Mea culpa.
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Why don't they just share the original sample? At least it could offer an existence proof
The probability of being able to reproduce this is unknown, there's no reason it couldn't be one in millions. If the original sample breaks in transit or experimentation we may have lost the only example of a room temp superconductor ever seen.
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Personally, I think we are past the point of this being nothing. There have been multiple confirmations of at least something unexplained going on. Maybe all of them are wrong but honestly, that is more of an extraordinary claim than saying this is something interesting, just not a full on room temp superconductor.
It's not that extraordinary. When people rush to replicate an experiment, everybody with a positive result has something to publish very quickly, and everybody with a negative result need a lot more time to be certain of it. The kinds of results we are seeing are very hard to get by chance or due to bad experimental setup. But as a rule, we can't really differentiate a real thing from random noise in as little time a…
Only one of the four labs that completed replication has claimed to have found diamagnetism, but how could that video be explained otherwise?
This is so reminiscent of what happened after Fleischmann & Pons. Labs attempting to replicate saw this property, or that property, but never the whole, unequivocal picture. Here we have a room temperature superconductor that isn't a superconductor at room temperature. A sample that has no measured Meissner Effect at any temperature. And the authors admit that some (many?) of the samples tested out as semiconductors.…
I see. So what you’re saying is that if we replace the palladium with LK-99 then cold fusion is back on? You know, because hype. This is, as the kids say, very bullish.
ELI5, if these folks confirmed zero resistance at room temp and atmospheric pressure, isn't that confirmation of the original paper? Edit: I read 100 K as 100°c. Mea culpa.
So exciting! Just FYI, the wikipedia page for LK-99 has a very useful tracking grid of replication attempts with sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK-99
I'm curious why every tracker lists Argonne, though no status or progress listed. I'm sure there are a hundred other labs who've either done nothing, or are doing something without fanfare, so why Argonne?
Personally I'm waiting for the Argonne results which should be done by the end of the week.
[0] https://www.science.org/content/article/spectacular-supercon...
Question for the cognoscenti: supposing that LK-99 superconducts with T_c = 110 K, how significant a discovery would this be? I.e., does it establish a brand new class of high-T superconductors, or is it merely one unremarkable member of a known class? Further, does it offer advantages over other high-T superconductors such as ease of fabrication or cost?
It's a brand new class. The material cost is lower than most superconductors - it's lead and copper - but no one has any idea on fabrication, yield size, etc., now, so no good answers there.
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The biggest near future tech for superconductors: fusion power. One huge area of exploration for fusion power is tokamok reactor design, which requires a very strong magnetic field to confine plasma within a round shape - typically a torus, though I think I read of one spherical shell. I suppose these don't necessarily need room temperature super conductors, but cheaper and easier to manufacture superconducting mater…
I think energy storage, motors / accelerators and weapons would come first. A superconducting linear motor would probably also make for a great cannon.