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Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

arxiv.org

301–310 of 389 posts

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#301
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read through this thread and I can't help to feel reminded of the discussion about cryptocurrencies. So many people that want to believe , rational people that try to explain why it has to work when there is just not enough information right now. As if we believing it will change the outcome of the replication everybody that doesn't believe is shunned and called a heretic. Suddenly people that studied social scienc…

> I read through this thread and I can't help to feel reminded of the discussion about cryptocurrencies. Same. Some people are simply wired to be perma-skeptics / perma-bears / perma-negative. This community is still full of people who truly don’t grasp how world changing bitcoin is. They are in complete denial, most often parroting unoriginal talking points that they’ve been handed from others. It’s easier to bypass…

I'll not take a personal stance on crypto in this comment, but it's really a stretch to try and compare the two.

No one debates that there are significant and important uses for RTAPS. Lots of people debate if there are significant and important uses for cryptocurrency.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, and LK-99 isn’t made of a single material either.

Can you elaborate on that ? For noobs like me, LK-99 only contains Pb9Cu(PO4)6O, doesn’t it ?

Diamond and graphite both only contain C.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#303
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, he didn't. You're getting the wrong message here. That publication is necessary to arouse his interest doesn't mean it's sufficient to make him believe anything. Those are different things. Peer review for publication is just meant to cut out the obvious crap. It's not a guaranty, and nobody who knows this stuff thinks it is.

Do you even do proofs in your line of work? I'm saying making publication necessary for arousal is a foolproof way to miss out on the beginnings of most of the really interesting stuff. Yeah he can read the ivy-approved materials in nature, but that would be stale. Okay, I can understand that his own line of work is much more interesting to him, that he would ignore the latest glimmerings from adjacent fields. That m…

Several years ago there was publicized a P = NP proof, and during our group meeting I couldn't help but audibly scoff, but our advisor just calmly downloaded the pdf and started skimming it.

It was an object lesson for me. Keep an open mind, use your own competence and intellectual abilities to see for yourself and decide. And only then can you offer insightful criticism.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#304

I don’t understand the physics, but it feels like a truly zero resistance conductor would violate some law of thermodynamics or something. Is a superconductor truly zero impedence or just very very very low? Because I’m seeing a lot of these graphs with something like: “0.00001ohm” as the y-axis floor.

Similar to how a magnet works. A magnet can hold something forever, so seems like a violation of thermodynamics. But "holding" isn't work, it's just force. (Which is still kinda spooky, admittedly) Similarly, conducting itself isn't work, it's just conduction.

It's a lot less spooky when you consider that your desk can hold your coffee mug forever. It's exerting force on the mug, but not doing any work.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#305
post #299

I'm puzzled by this, looking at the resistance versus temperature graph they're not demonstrating zero resistance at 110K, they're demonstrating that at 110K the resistance becomes so low that it reaches the noise floor of their instrument. It's a stretch to call that superconductivity because when it come to that it needs to be actually zero, as in "I can put a current in a loop made of the material and come back on…

Well, that's one of the reasons demonstrating the Meissner effect is considered a better evidence of superconductivity. Of course any physical experiment always has a noise floor and a finite error. You can't exactly ever measure zero resistance because your probes and the probe-sample interface have nonzero resistance…

But looking at that graph, it would be an incredible coincidence if the resistance dropped like it does and then suddenly stabilized to some very small but nonzero value… That would probably require entirely new physics to explain and would be a much bigger news than "merely" a 110K Tc superconductor!

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#306
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, we live in the age of TikTok. Videos on their own bring no more credibility than written text; they no longer evince a substantively greater investment of resources. I'm more inclined toward the cheerleading section of the LK-99 audience, but watching the videos I realized now is a perfect opportunity to apply recalibrated B.S. detectors.

This doesnt pass the smell test. Why would multiple independent labs fake their videos? What’s the conspiracy here? There is no upside, we will know in a couple of weeks if it’s real or not.

If it takes X weeks to do research and someone publishes results before that time, then the conclusion that the results are suspect is warranted and is in no way a conspiracy theory.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good to keep an open mind both ways, but "skepticism" without either interesting or convincing arguments is IMO just as useless. We all know there is a good chance it turns out to be a dud. We all know cold fusion/emdrive/superluminal experiments turned out to be duds. We all know this. I wonder what news do "skeptics" have to bring to the table. Nothing a skeptic has to say changes anything. We are all - except…

> It's good to keep an open mind both ways, but "skepticism" without either interesting or convincing arguments is IMO just as useless. skepticism is an useful filter > I wonder what news do "skeptics" have to bring to the table. reminder of "We all know there is a good chance it turns out to be a dud. We all know cold fusion/emdrive/superluminal experiments turned out to be duds. We all know this." not everyone know…

> not everyone knows this

I actually think far more people know this than done; it wouldn't surprise me if it truly is practically "everyone" on Hacker News.

But what is the expectation here? Must every comment thinking about the possibilities or being excited by incremental evidence of support be prefaced with a note of skepticism? Must we engage in such ritualistic behavior in order to be seen as anything other than hopeless scientific romantics? I must pour a bucket of cold water on my own head before feeling even an ounce of optimism? Optimism carries the possible - even likely - cost of disappointment, and in the wrong company can create the same in others. Pessimism is beneficial, but it doesn't have to be worn on one's sleeve at all times lest it sap joy and color from the world. This is a community of enthusiasts, we can be enthusiastic without also being hopeless idiots lurching from one false discovery to the next.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat disappointed the russian twitter anon isn't included, since they seem to have made the first replication attempt that might have panned out.

Anon is fine, I’m inclined to promote anons who do credible replications. Russian anon is not one of them, she really should take a video at the very least, even then her speck is so small until she released detailed measurements one can’t in good faith trust her. I won’t be surprised if at the end of all this, she just claims she was trolling in good fun and we’re the fools for taking anything she says seriously.

>I won’t be surprised if at the end of all this, she just claims she was trolling in good fun and we’re the fools for taking anything she says seriously.

Ahhh, you gotta love the internet

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#309

Looking at the key temperature-resistivity graphs, this feels like the data doesn't support the conclusion that there's a superconductor here. The temperature-resistivity graphs of superconductors I've seen all have a fairly steep cutoff--a sharp, vertical line at critical temperature. The log-scale here complicates my intuition, but what I see is a gradual transition into noise range. Also, the graphs I've seen have…

The proposed mechanism for superconductivity in lk-99 is pretty different so that may be confounding your interpretation of those graphs.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s plenty of skepticism. It’s the zero-cost position here. But there are good and bad skeptical positions. The good one involves people attempting to replicate and publishing results whether positive, negative or somewhere in between. The bad one consists of sitting in forums and threads being, “the voice of reason”. If there’s a real problem, it’s that we have still not made publication of negative results suff…

> The bad one consists of sitting in forums and threads being, “the voice of reason”. You put it perfectly. I'm mostly skeptical and very guardedly optimistic because something seems to be happening. But I've very carefully marked each and every one of my comments with 'assuming this is true' or 'if this is true' to avoid the impression that I'm already convinced. I'm not. But I'm on the side of everybody getting the…

I think the unqualified negativitiy is based on a common misunderstanding of the scientific process, that if one finds any shortcoming in a result--be it applied or theoretical--one can throw the entire work in the trash under the pretense of falsification.

But this is wrong. Science is about weighing the totality of evidence, and refining that evidence in one direction or another over many iterations.

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