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Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

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Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#111

Post by iamshs »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #61
sashank_1509 wrote: post #40

This makes me extremely bullish about Varda Space, they have engineers of high quality and expertise that they could do a decent replication very quickly (if they got access to raw materials earlier, they might have been first to do so, comparable with the Chinese Groups) while working on their off time (from what I’ve seen of their twitter) and not a single big academic lab has managed to complete any sort of replic…

It's really disappointing that no other US lab has engaged with the public in the same manner. Regardless of the outcome, I think seeing things get built and experimented with in mostly real-time is a massive source of inspiration.

All I see from US academics on Twitter are debates about this and that. Borderline annoying. This is the first result from mighty US capitalist machine meanwhile 3 Chinese labs have published pre prints and Russian replicated it in her kitchen.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#112

Post by anonylizard »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #60
sashank_1509 wrote: post #40

This makes me extremely bullish about Varda Space, they have engineers of high quality and expertise that they could do a decent replication very quickly (if they got access to raw materials earlier, they might have been first to do so, comparable with the Chinese Groups) while working on their off time (from what I’ve seen of their twitter) and not a single big academic lab has managed to complete any sort of replic…

The first pre-print came out on 22 July (if I am not mistaken). Not enough time has passed pure and simple. If I was an academic working on this, I would be following the Sagan Standard and triple checking my results before claiming anything. I think we are all suffering from 24 hour news cycles. The work in China and now Varda is very exciting but they are warp speed developments.

This is simply what post-peer-review looks like.

Instead of a few anonymous peer reviews, you get the entire planet to replicate. Moment you get something meaningful, publish it on arxiv. Quantity, not quality is king. Anomalies are drowned out by large samples. Questionable methods get mass debated in public.

Scientists are dependent on public funding, why squander the biggest moment in pop science for literal decades?

Now this won't work for 99.99% of research. But top tier research will probably get published on youtube and arxiv in the future...

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#113

Post by bglazer »

huijzer wrote: post #98
toxik wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t ring true for me at all, academia is many things but if your supervisor is onboard, you can generally do anything.

Okay still stuck in peer review then

Nope you can just put a preprint out. Like it or not, academic labs are probably busy doing things like checking their data and doing multiple replicates varying conditions. You know, science.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#114

Post by anonylizard »

iamshs wrote: post #111
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really disappointing that no other US lab has engaged with the public in the same manner. Regardless of the outcome, I think seeing things get built and experimented with in mostly real-time is a massive source of inspiration.

All I see from US academics on Twitter are debates about this and that. Borderline annoying. This is the first result from mighty US capitalist machine meanwhile 3 Chinese labs have published pre prints and Russian replicated it in her kitchen.

This, its utterly shameful. Hot takes here, hot takes there, skepticism here, tell people to calm down there.

Yet not a single replication! China has gone through multiple failed and successful replications so far. And the first US replication is from an amateur.

If LK-99 works out, expect some congressmen to use this as a bludgeoning tool against the state of US public science.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#116

Post by dillydogg »

orra wrote: post #90
dillydogg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean closed source software? Because that would rule out Hackernews. But I agree on the principle. Maybe it's the type of discussion. I would be happier if this very exciting superconductor story was unfolding somewhere else than Twitter.

A walled garden is when users contribute the data for free, but the data is stuck. No free API access.

Ah, makes sense, thanks for the clarification

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#118

Post by vinyl7 »

rvnx wrote: post #34
pera wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is basically broken if you don't login, compare this: https://twitter.com/andrewmccalip https://nitter.net/andrewmccalip In Twitter the latest tweet I see is from July, in Nitter is 22 minutes ago. Additionally in Twitter I get 3 notices/popups that I need to close.

Links behind logins wall/paywall should be totally forbidden, Twitter, Quora, news websites, etc. I don't even get why they are indexed by Google, as this is cloaking, and forbidden by the ToS (+ gets annoying)

Google has a rule where links from google can't be paywalled. So you can see Quora posts if you enter from a Google link, but not if you go to the URL directly.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#119

Post by anonylizard »

pm215 wrote: post #82
Torkel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As engineers we are given building blocks that we can build things from. Iron, steel, copper, plastic. Every once in a while a new building block arrives. It takes a while for us to figure out how to use it. But when we do, the world changes. - batteries + touch screens => iPhone - batteries got better => Tesla - reinforced concrete => pretty much all the worlds buildings and bridges - neodymium magnets + gyros => dr…

We're in a hurry in the sense that we don't want to leave investigation of this on the back burner for a few months, but we're not in a hurry in the sense that it's going to make any difference in practice whether a lab group reports today that they've reproduced it, or takes a bit more time to be careful and reports more thoroughly in two weeks time. Any first mover advantages are likely to accrue to the groups who…

This is why Elon takes dumps on competitor companies.

He understands how to market in the social media age.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#120

Post by blackkettle »

wiz21c wrote: post #55
blackkettle wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% true and actually a very interesting statement. Can you imagine if he had tried to present this idea to the c-suite as a potential marketing or PR coup?!

Do we really care if they confirm it in a week or two ? Are we on a hurry ? I don't know anything bout supraconductors but given the number of failing attempts to repicalte (and the number succeeding), I would not be suprised if it'd take quite some time before we can be certain. Moreover, we'll need a consensus among all the people who understand the subject. So, a week or even a month won't make any difference. We'…

My point was not actually about the ultimate result of replication. This guy undoubtably performed an indirect marketing coup for his company by engaging competently on this tangentially related topic and then following through.

In my experience though, if he had made any effort to link those two things prior to doing this - e.g. by proposing this as an internally sponsored marketing stunt - it would probably have been rejected.

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