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

Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 363 posts

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#121

Post by dillydogg »

owenmarshall wrote: post #91
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.

“Walled garden” is orthogonal to “open source” A walled garden is a site that degrades significantly or is unavailable without an account, like Twitter. Anyone can view all of HN modulo dead comments without an account. You can have a fully open source walled garden.

I appreciate the clarification, thanks. This forum is open to the public at the moment. Though Hackernews could go down or take the conversation offline at any moment (this is an issue of trust more than anything, and I think HN does a good job, certainly more than Twitter)

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#122

Post by sebzim4500 »

alberth wrote: post #115

ELI5, can someone please. This stuff is over my head (what I'm looking at, ramifications, etc) I'm also confused because I see conflicting things (e.g. "room temperature" but video says "500C"). Also, is this real or fake? I've seen comments on both.

>what I'm looking at, ramifications, etc)

It's showing a sample of something that might be partially a superconductor (as in, one side of it might be superconducting and one side might not be). It's probably not a complete superconductor, since it would be floating if it was. Some people are saying it's a very weird magnet.

If it's a superconductor then this could be comparable in impact to the development of the transistor. As in, it won't change things overnight but in 50 years people will look back at it as the beginning of a new era of technology.

>I see conflicting things (e.g. "room temperature" but video says "500C").

I think the 500C refers to the manufacturing process, not the current temperature.

>Also, is this real or fake? I've seen comments on both.

The video is almost certainly real, but it may not show a superconductor. The risk isn't intentional fraud, it's just hard to tell with these small, impure samples.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#123

Post by EvgeniyZh »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #38

Interesting, this is being done in room temperature too. I suppose a few things I can conclude from this saga: 1. The synthesis process is much more complex than the original paper suggests. Every group except the original is unable to create a large piece of sufficient purity. 2. It seems like even with a pure sample, the entire structure might not be superconducting which leads it to tilt on one edge instead of com…

This 1D stuff really confuses me. I was taught that 1D superconductivity is prohibited by Mermin Wagner theorem. You can induce superconductivity on 1D system but that requires higher dimensional SC near it, which is the opposite of proposed scenario?

If someone have seen theoretical papers explaining this and/or understands it, I'd love to know. Iris Alexandera posted link to some experimental paper [1] but I didn't understand the mechanism from it and it is very scarcely cited

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1459

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#124

Post by s5300 »

sanxiyn wrote: post #80
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…

World first replication was done by Iris Alexandra using her own accelerated process and there is no way Varda Space could have beaten her.

>> World first replication was done by Iris Alexandra using her own accelerated process and there is no way Varda Space could have beaten her.

World first public replication

As much respect for her as I have & as much I’ve enjoyed watching this pan out, a U.S. DoE affiliated lab or other nation states’ equivalent likely did something in the same timeframe.

People working in those labs are unfathomably smart & talented.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#125

Post by CharlieDigital »

anonylizard wrote: post #112
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 decad…

Not all meaningful science is this level of groundbreaking for this model to work. Formal peer review is still very much necessary.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#127

Post by huijzer »

bglazer wrote: post #113
huijzer wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, exactly. And getting approvals from three layers of management. You know, science.

I'm pushing back against academia because I think the system is pretty much a mess. Academics believe that we got all the nice technological innovation because of academia. I think it is despite academia. Most money going there is just wasted on writing not what you think is right but what you think will be published, waiting for peer review, and other bureaucracy. The main problem is that academia works with the belief that science needs to be rigorous since bad science might damage their reputation. However, this is how governments think, but not how scientists should think! Would the world be a better place if any new website, company, or YouTuber should be reviewed by peers first? No. Just like science, these are strong link problems [1].

[1] https://www.experimental-history.com/p/science-is-a-strong-l...

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#128

Post by foobarian »

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.

Naturalize the Russian, problem solved.
Post reply on HN