Gotta love that one of the scientists quoted in the article now works in the finance field. Probably pays a bit more than a research scientist.
LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
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Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#262It’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.
I disagree. I get pissed off when revolutionary scientific news is brought to me only to turn out to be some bogus crap. I don’t care about the replication and peer review process, it’s not fun, it’s banal. I would much rather have preferred to learn about LK-99 once it was confirmed to be a room temp superconductor, and if it wasn’t then I’d rather never hear about it. Now I have to walk back explanations I gave to…
You've learnt a lesson and grown from it. There's no reason to blame others for your own actions.
This is also a great opportunity to demonstrate your understanding on how difficult the scientific process is to your friends.
Telling your friends you have changed your mind on everything you told them earlier because of new evidence should be something you take pride in. Because only true scientists change their minds, and even discard their most cherished theories, based on new evidence.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#263Sixty Symbols released a video about this yesterday, and in it professor Philip Moriarty is less than impressed with the whole ordeal. I haven't been paying attention, I'm too jaded and skeptical and assumed from the start that there was something wrong and much hype about nothing. Bad Science and Room Temperature Superconductors - Sixty Symbols: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl-AgmoZ5mo
everyone in this thread should watch this, instead of "the excitement was good for everyone" they might realize these hoaxes harm scientific integrity. The audacity of HN to state something is good, without listening to scientists give their take on it.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#264Honestly, I feel bad for the original authors, who were correctly holding out for stronger evidence but were forced into publishing early by the actions of a third party going behind their backs. I hope they don't experience undue blowback because of this.
I think the story might be more complicated than that, I remember reading that the "third party" was the one paying the bills for the experiment so pushing it out early and even publicly failing would've been preferable to getting it dragged out infinitely for an unlikely hope of it being successful.
This funder-rushed science exactly what created Doc Ock and the Green Goblin.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#265So it sounds like the purple crystal isn't repelled by magnets. So what part of the samples was causing the magnetic properties? Or are we saying that all of those videos and images were faked?
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#266It’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.
On the bright side: when people say “believe in the science,” this is exactly what they should be thinking: challenge.
This whole process has been super healthy and similar challenges are important and needed for everything published, not just this particular research area.
I might be out in left field, but I read so often that researchers are running out of ideas. What’s wrong with getting a PhD for challenging something already published? It is incredibly valuable to society.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Iris, the fabled ethnicly Russian LK99 Homebrewer with the Catgirl Girlfriend, is not convinced : - "70% CuS impurity" are you sure you didn't grab the Chalcocite by accident? - There's no significant CuS in samples prepared at 925°C. There cannot be. - I tried forcefully introducing sulfide into pbo, it just. Doesn't work. Even at 600°C. PbS reduces lead in 2 PbO to 3Pb, leaving as SO2. https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/…
I really wish less people would give pseudo-anon accounts this much credence. Literally no good science has (ever?) been done on Twitter/X, it's mostly just stupid equivocating. Much thanks goes out to the actual scientists out there working in labs and publishing their findings. The academic/publishing process is far from perfect already (conflicts of interest, funding, political pressure, institutional pressure, pe…
A 4chan user solved a 25yo combinatorics problem. If it can be done there why not twitter
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#268It’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.
I don't know what you are talking about. This material was never going to revolutionize anything even if it was a superconductor. What you call fun to witness was to me just another episode of "Mat Ferrell's Undecided" except on HN. Also, you can't solve the most important economic problems through technology anyway. How is a superconductor going to decrease your rent?
Room temp Superconductors, along with fusion, would affect the economy profoundly. What the exact effect on rent would be is hard to predict but under the "post-scarcity society" mental construct, having infinite energy at zero cost (amortized) would presumably make the price of housing change.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
diamagnetic material exist, and no theyre not nearly as useful as a superconductor with 0 resistance.
Diamagnetic levitation is extremely weak, which makes it much less practically useful, and also reduces its entertainment value (if you can levitate things 2 cm above the surface the 2 billion children in the world will be all over the stuff; the 1-2 mm you can get with bismuth diamagnetism isn't particularly impressive.
I don't know all these subtleties, but maglev trains are awesome.
Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor
#270So it sounds like the purple crystal isn't repelled by magnets. So what part of the samples was causing the magnetic properties? Or are we saying that all of those videos and images were faked?
Says it right there: CuS. You should read the whole thing, it’s really well-written and thorough.