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Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

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Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#181
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nanjing University physics professor Wen Haihu said in an interview with The Paper that the news was extremely likely to be false and they only assigned a student to it because many groups internationally were working on replications https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_24024641 "A researcher from the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) declined to comment on LK-99, telling the Post th…

Not go all conspiracy, but isn’t that also pretty much the playbook you’d run if you were trying to discredit it, to get as much of a jump on the rest of the world as possible? The Chinese government is not exactly known for playing fair.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#182
post #104
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From a scientific perspective, you are probably correct. But think about it from a company/wealth creation perspective. Are you then really sure the correct course of action is to take it chill?

My point partly is that as outside observers we can't deduce "is taking it chill" merely because we haven't seen two press releases and three tweetstorms from any particular lab yet. They might be slogging away but not caring to report every step on the path to the outside world.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#183
post #97
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. You still need access to red phosphorous which is not all that easy to get hold of.

the 1000 C furnace is nothing to sneeze at either.

... and an X-ray Diffractometer.

What is the point of making it if you can't prove that what you made is LK99?

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#184
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Questionable methods get mass debated in public. By people who don't know what they're talking about. You're seriously underestimating the level of expertise that it takes to professionally assess most research. It wouldn't be unusual for there to be a small handful of people with that ability in the world.

> > Questionable methods get mass debated in public.

> By people who don't know what they're talking about.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds all these public mass debaters disgusting.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't understand why she would be like this. Why would anyone hold back the production process for a material that could change humanity forever?

Her methods were improvised and lacking, by her own admission. There are several world class labs working on this today. There's basically zero chance a junior researcher doing amateur chemistry in the kitchen is going to outperform the best groups in the world at figuring out how to synthesize this thing with decent yield, and then characterizing it.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#186
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the 1000 C furnace is nothing to sneeze at either.

... and an X-ray Diffractometer. What is the point of making it if you can't prove that what you made is LK99?

A levitating rock would be good enough for me!

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge this is the first ever demonstration to show the exactly same thing as Q-center's original video (partly because this sample is much larger than others), so I believe my argument is probably safe. But I understand your and GP's judgements given the recent craze. To be fair, I'm still conservative about the whole thing, but it does look clear to me that we are witnessing the conflict between two big th…

This isn't a big deal but to explain a bit why it came off wrong, sometimes I have a hard time socially and wish people would just explain their reactions instead of focusing on having the reaction: - It's not the first, to wit, the repro's author pointing out it looks the same as effect from China repro from...3 days ago? Time is elusive. - The Russian catgirl superconductor theory stuff is a blind alley, you've gon…

You could have just requested more contexts then. You instead picked three particular phrases, which are actually least relevant parts of the linked article, and concluded (or appeared to conclude) that my article is not worthwhile to read. It might be, but I want it to be worthwhile to read and your reply had no hints to avoid that. Especially given that the very point of my article is about providing those contexts.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#188
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why she would be like this. Why would anyone hold back the production process for a material that could change humanity forever?

Why? Simple, there's lots of mentally ill people on this planet. Anime profile pictures are usualy a redflag. These kind of people should only be ignored since they never want to cooperate.

That sort of comment is completely unnecessary and ignorant on so many levels. Do better.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#189
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, I laughed when I saw that comment. I believe she would be denied entry to the US based on the questions that screen out communists, although because the particular question mentions a party and I don't believe she's a CPRF member it's possible it wouldn't apply. Regardless, not a good fit on either end of the relationship.

I'm more amused by 'grab anyone we want' stance, along with 'everyone wants to be the US citizen'. Imagine some Chinese would said that about some US scientist.
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