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Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

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Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#131
post #77
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am totally confused, it is documented in the original south korean paper, why anyone would want to rely on such second hand unverified info when first hand info from the original inventors are freely available to everyone?

not sure what you are saying. other labs are trying to replicate what Koreans published and are documenting the their process of replication

Also it's great that all of the labs have their own style for how they replicate it.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#132
post #80

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.

Do we actually know who that is though? I thought it was pseudoanonymous. It’s a new twitter account at least.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#133
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Do we actually know who that is though? I thought it was pseudoanonymous. It’s a new twitter account at least.

It is pseudonymous, although the handle iris_IGB suggests she works at IGB, Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences.

https://genebiology.ru/

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#134
post #111

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.

Yes, but our ESG scores are impeccable.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#136

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…

This kind of public interest and demonstrations is unique only to RTS and few other phenomena

- ordinary ppl more or less understand the importance of RTS

- a visible and understandable effect (Meissner) can be shown on successful replication

- the materials required are easier to understand, but the synthesis procedure is tricky, and purity is important

- The skills of chemists comes into play, leading to kind of a Breaking Bad feel

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#137

The humility is refreshing, compared to anime girl. Also, the photos/videos are not shot using a potato.

Exactly, that Russian anime girl shud not be getting any credit, I don’t say this because of her anonymity but because of her absolute refusal to take a video or do absolutely anything that can make outsiders trust her claims.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#138
post #50

Can anyone conduct a proper measurement of resistivity versus temperature and determine whether it's a superconductor or not?

In another thread such a measurement has been discussed.

Unfortunately such measurements are not enough for definitive conclusions, because all that they can show is that below some temperature the resistance becomes smaller than the error of the measuring equipment.

Moreover, because the samples obtained so far are extremely inhomogeneous, they do not show a definite transition temperature, which would have made superconductivity much more plausible.

In any case, the results obtained so far are enough for showing that it is worthwhile to invest time and money for developing a method of producing samples that are larger and more pure, because whatever they are, they must have unusual properties.

The best would be to develop a method for making monocrystals, because this material has an asymmetric crystal structure, which might have very anisotropic properties.

The most interesting properties of semiconductors could not be discovered during the first century after their discovery by Faraday, because they were not available as pure monocrystals. Only after the methods for growing pure crystals have been developed during WW2 (for radar diodes), it became possible to measure the intrinsic properties of the semiconductors and to design new devices using them, and then the semiconductor industry has grown exponentially.

With this kind of non-metallic superconductor, the problems may be similar.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#140
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Seeing her tweets, I doubt she wants to exercise this option.
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