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Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

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Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#261

Post by Jweb_Guru »

deyiao wrote: post #41

The optimistic aspects are: 1. The diamagnetism of LK-99 is very strong; 2. In almost all experiments, LK-99 has only exhibited one-dimensional diamagnetism, which is hard to consider as fraudulent coincidence; 3. One-dimensional diamagnetism is very mysterious, and there is currently no suitable theoretical explanation.

It has been noted that graphite also exhibits "one-dimensional diamagnetism" (in the sense that it has much stronger diamagnetism in one plane than the other two) and it levitates fine and isn't very mysterious. There also haven't been any reliable measurements of strong diamagnetism in LK-99. We have the video from the team, which is not evidence of diamagnetism let alone strong diamagnetism, and we have a handful of magnetic susceptibility tests from labs on tiny, tiny samples (much smaller than the one in the video) that found weak diamagnetism.

I don't really think anything about LK-99 is optimistic at this point, honestly.

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#262

Post by Qwertious »

krab wrote: post #196
lucubratory wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is extremely rare that actionable, reproducible information comes out of the patent process. In general, they provide as little information as possible in order to satisfy the office, which is extremely overworked and (by design) rubber stamps everything that has basically the correct headings and formatting and isn't too similar to an existing patent.

In the case of drugs, it works. The day a patent expires, you have generics that instantly lower the market price. Replicating a drug from a patent is not free but you know that the compound works and can be synthesized. It's much cheaper than doing original research where a drug candidate can fail after you invested a lot into it.

For drugs, patents:

1. Successfully provide a profit

2. Are necessary to provide said profit

3. Are long enough to provide enough profit to pay back the investment

But it's not clear that they're short enough to encourage further rapid improvements. Like, suppose a patent lasts 20 years but would still be worth pursuing even if it lasted only 5 years; that's 15 years of public development opportunity lost, for each patent.

Currently, the system is that the government declares "X years" by fiat. If it's too short, then corporations can lobby for longer patent durations. If it's not too short, then corporations can lobby anyway. This is a functional but mediocre system, and there's clearly room for improvement.

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#263

Post by stormfather »

hcks wrote: post #223
stormfather wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smartest people obsessing over LLMs and LK-99 is exactly what I want, personally. They're potentially truly revolutionary things.

The smartest people are not obsessing over LK-99, actually

Well there are some people whose personality is their snarky cynicism and negativity. If other people weren't getting excited about stuff, they wouldn't have anything to reject and belittle! Then we wouldn't all get to know how smart they are. How unfortunate that would be.

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#264

Post by Jweb_Guru »

macromaniac wrote: post #256
pouulet wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This man claims to have reproduced the same kind of effects with a simple ferromagnetic sample: https://nitter.net/VanGennepD/status/1688052003216261120

The picture on figure 4 of this paper rules out ferromagnetism, assuming it's legit https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.01516.pdf

People seem skeptical that it's actually been ruled out by that test. Regardless, that paper found diamagnetism on the level of pyrolytic graphite, which would be interesting in this material albeit not really evidence of superconductivity, but from what I've heard it is very easy to get anomalous reports of diamagnetism during zero field cooling if there is a high-temperature ferromagnetic transition, and you have to be extremely careful about your measurements and do lots of repeated tests to be sure. AFAIK, every other paper has either only seen very weak diamagnetism (expected given the compounds involved) or none at all.

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#265

Post by kjkjadksj »

carabiner wrote: post #242
alecst wrote: post #216

A few comments on diamagnetism: The most strongly diamagnetic materials that aren't a superconductor are bismuth and pyrolytic carbon, a graphite-like material. Bismuth has a density of about 10g/cm^3, and a diamagnetic strength (X) of -16.6 x 10^-5. It won't levitate above a magnet because it's just too heavy. Pyrolytic carbon has a density of 2g/cm^3, and a diamagnetic strength of -40 x 10^-5. Thin sheets of this l…

Do highly diagmagnetic materials have any practical use?

Frictionless travel

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#266

Post by jovial_cavalier »

mort96 wrote: post #188
jovial_cavalier wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how it would hold back research. Private companies and universities would still be able to acquire the material to do R&D with it.

I have to admit I'm not very familiar with how patents work in this field in particular, but in general, patents seem to have a huge limiting effect on research. For example, in video coding, nobody wants to invest into making a new codec just to find that their codec falls under a patent owned by the MPEG, and it's really hard to make a new codec which doesn't fall under those patents.

If the patent is on the process for creating LK-99, then obviously that patent only has worth in that people are going to buy LK-99 from the patent holder for development of new applications, and eventually marketing of the applications themselves. The same people may use their initiative to generate a bunch of patents on applications of LK-99, and indeed most of its applications may end up being patented, but that's not to say progress will be halted because of this.

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#267

Post by viscanti »

n2d4 wrote: post #211
viscanti wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't discovered in 99. That's when two of the researchers were in university and had a professor who had a theory that something like it could work. They took a good amount of time off from it while they worked at other jobs, before starting at their research center.

From the NYT source linked on the Wikipedia article: > The name of the material comes from the initials of the surnames of two of the scientists — Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim — and the year 1999, when they say they first synthesized LK-99. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/03/science/lk-99-superconduc...

I guess it depends what you mean by LK-99. They didn't have any luck with their early batches and it wasn't until after an extended break in adjunct professorship and industry that they got back together. A happy accident happened where they bumped it part way through trying to synthesize it and they got a sample with some of the properties that kept them going. So in 99, they were just following the advice of their mentor who was a professor. The NYT coverage is misleading in that they weren't really sitting on room temperature and pressure superconductors for 20+ years.

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#268

Post by lost_tourist »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #31

LK-99 is a quasi two-dimensional material, and one which seems particularly challenging to synthesize in a bulk polycrystalline three-dimensional mass. Even the original researchers stated that they'd "get it right" only a fraction of the time, and that their famous floating cracked-disc is still impure. I think that there's no reason to assume that negative results right now are conclusive, whereas positive results…

"...whereas positive results are strongly indicative..." [if the claims come from highly respected labs with experienced experimental scientists]

Re: Compilation of claims/reports of LK-99 replication efforts

#270

Post by lost_tourist »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #234
KineticLensman wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Partly to ensure that the whole process is well understood, and that there aren't some (unstated) aspects specific to the original lab. By way of example, when multiple labs conduct genetics experiments on mice, even the food that the mice were fed has to be standardised to ensure that it isn't driving variation between the results.

And now even the sex of the researcher because mice were reacting differently surprisingly.

Not sure that's "weird" because I have certainly seen pets who were more comfortable around women than men. Maybe from bad experiences in the past before the pet was adopted.
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