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LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

nature.com

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Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#181

Post by lamontcg »

chefandy wrote: post #152
lamontcg wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> saw physicists excited by the potential, Mostly I saw actual physicists who had experience in the field being very skeptical, throwing a lot of cold water on the fire, and pointing out that the original authors looked like amateurs. And then I saw a lot of people with zero experience in the field running around yelling about how they were out of touch, how this was a revolutionary new way that science would progres…

So... who cares? Why should laypeople be expected to engage in that much analysis solely to avoid excitement? These aren't policy makers. No lives were lost. Only keystrokes were wasted... and, calling them wasted is probably too harsh. Lots of people learned what a cool thing this would be if it happened, are disappointed that this isn't it, and might even be a little more interested in physics going forward. Why ar…

> This could be a teachable moment that could inform people about climate change, coronavirus and other scientific claims...

I addressed why.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#182

Post by tysam_and »

okamiueru wrote: post #165
lolinder wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, I think the excitement and hopefulness was not dangerous or wrong, but I do see a risk to this kind of preprint hype in other contexts. During COVID there were multiple cases like this where a study got a lot of hype and discussion from non-experts and turned into "the science says X", when in fact the science was as of yet extremely unsettled. Sure enough, as the experts came to a consensus it rarely m…

I think this kind of excitement followed up with "wasn't anything after all" is both dangerous and wrong. When science is done badly (which arguably shouldn't be considered science), which then leads the public to have elevated expectations, only then for science to be done right and disprove and reject the original "findings", public trust in science is ever so slightly damaged.

I think you're conflating PR with the science underneath.

PR is something we cannot control -- and avoiding releasing results in a (semi-vain?) attempt to control PR arguably does more harm than releasing them does.

The sea makes waves as it will. We can moderate as much as we are able. I think the rest is simply a matter of accepting that things happen as they do out of our control. We can only truly impact ---- and even then, not necessarily guaranteed! D: ---- -- in some potentially very small part -- whatever sphere is around us, and I feel that that's a collective individual responsibility.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#183

Post by downWidOutaFite »

reportingsjr wrote: post #48
Moomoomoo309 wrote: post #25

I found Thunderf00t's video on LK-99 to be funny because he pointed out something no one else did: In almost all applications of superconductors, they don't use high-temperature ones for one simple reason: Material properties. Most high-temp superconductors (including LK-99, he was assuming it was one, since he's not qualified to say one way or the other) are a ceramic. The ones that see use in the LHC, for instance,…

The current generation of mass manufactured high temperature superconducting tape is based on YBCO, which is a crystalline material (presumably what is meant here when saying ceramic). So the argument that superconductors need to be metallic/malleable to be useful doesn't really make a lot of sense.

YBCO isn't really used for anything. MRI machines use metallic NbTi even though it requires liquid helium because YBCO is too brittle and can't handle large currents.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#184

Post by deepspace »

vecter wrote: post #14

In their preprint, the Korean authors note one particular temperature at which LK-99’s showed a tenfold drop in resistivity, from about 0.02 ohms per centimetre to 0.002 ohms per cm. “They were very precise about it. 104.8ºC,” says Prashant Jain, a chemist at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign. “I was like, wait a minute, I know this temperature.” The reaction that synthesizes LK-99 uses an unbalanced recipe…

When I first saw the quoted resistivity, 0.002 ohms per cm, my thought was "this is not even a conductor, let alone a superconductor". 0.2 Ohms/m is several orders of magnitude less conductive than most metals, and solidly in the semiconductor range.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#185

Post by postalrat »

fluoridation wrote: post #136
rowanG077 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem, which is often the case with Thunderf00t, is that he is missing the forest for the trees. No one who knows anything was thinking of using LK-99 for serious applications. The specs of LK-99 where just too shit. What it would have been is a start shot for understanding the effect and creating more useful materials based on the same underlying physical process.

Thunderf00t's point, though, is that LK-99 is not novel in its material category. High temperature superconductors that are hard and brittle already existed. What would be interesting would be a malleable high temperature semiconductor, because then you can make it into cables.

Sounds like Thunderf00t doomed himself to be wrong no matter what happens to lk-99.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#186

Post by deepspace »

iraqmtpizza wrote: post #178

I don't see how 0.002 ohms per cm could be confused with superconductivity. Is that not orders of magnitude too high? Or there are no instruments which can directly measure resistance more precisely?

Yes, that was my first thought. There are absolutely instruments which can directly measure resistance down to 10E-8 ohms/m or lower, and I would expect any lab doing research into superconductivity to at least have one of those.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#187

Post by MBCook »

So is LK-99 still something that may be useful in some other way due to some confirmed property?

Or was all this just a mistake, from a usefulness perspective.

It was fun to watch, nice to get hope of something so cool, and good to see the scientific process in action.

But is there any reason to keep researching LK-99 over some other random compound?

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#188

Post by DonHopkins »

lolinder wrote: post #76
Waterluvian wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed! There's this bizarre reaction I see from many where they see the excitement and curiosity and hopefulness as a form of error and source of embarrassment. When mixed with an open mind and reasonable skepticism, it's a powerful opportunity to get people engaged in imagining a different world. I had all kinds of exciting conversations about what a validated, commercially viable LK-99 could produce. Why would I e…

In this case, I think the excitement and hopefulness was not dangerous or wrong, but I do see a risk to this kind of preprint hype in other contexts. During COVID there were multiple cases like this where a study got a lot of hype and discussion from non-experts and turned into "the science says X", when in fact the science was as of yet extremely unsettled. Sure enough, as the experts came to a consensus it rarely m…

[flagged]

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#189

Post by amelius »

thinkingkong wrote: post #2

It’s disappointing news but the excitement and amount of replication on this paper was pretty fun to witness and experience. To me the most interesting part was everyone talking about potential consequences, uses, the order of magnitude improvements we’d see in certain costs or areas. Pumps, MRIs, power grids, chips, etc. Great reminder what materials science can do to some underlying economics.

This invention almost saved our generation. I mean, our parents invented radar, semiconductors, nuclear energy, etc. For us it's back to building social media, adtech, and similar "technology", I guess.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#190

Post by themagician »

chmod600 wrote: post #38

None of the earlier articles mentioned ferromagnetic levitation vs superconducting levitation and how to tell them apart.

Because all of the people publishing information about this were playing the options market. There was no need to actually educate anyone on anything. This was a scam. It worked.

One person sees the opportunity it creating a hype train and gets a few buddies on board. Loads up on $1 calls for something they feel could be the next meme stock, like AMSC. Options start to load up on 7/18, just a few days before the 7/22 original drop on arxiv. You get the 7/22 drop and then uploads of grainy videos start to show up. Bank a few million in options contracts as the price of AMSC doubles overnight. Other people see the hype train leaving the station and start their own, using the same strategy.

It's how you end up with a dozen potato quality videos and very specific information attached to the comment threads, "This is going to be HUGE for quantum computing @IonQ_Inc if true."

We have seen these types of market manipulation scams in the past. This was the first time we've seen someone use something like arxiv to do this. Brilliant idea, really. We will see more in the future no doubt.

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