LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

Post by creato » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #281

okamiueru wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

public trust in science is ever so slightly damaged This is just another example of the media’s negative effect on society. Similarly, the media endlessly poring over every detail of the Ukraine war has likely made their job much more difficult because it damages the element of surprise. The media originally began as something quite negative with what we called “yellow journalism.” Then for a century or so we saw a k…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 8:54 PM UTC

sethbannon wrote: post #324

I felt like folks were getting too optimistic in the early days and now I feel folks are getting way to pessimistic. We don't know if any of these failed replication experiments actually made the same LK-99 the Korean team did. The only way of knowing for sure if LK-99 is a room temp superconductor is if outside labs test the samples the Korean team has made . It's entirely possible that the exact impurities in their…

Post by kaba0 » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 8:55 PM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #167

chefandy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeez— it's almost like few people around here are physicists, consider physicists credible on their specialty, saw physicists excited by the potential, and get excited by exciting things. What a shamefully foolish intellectual failure!

As noted by the sibling comment, the physicists (especially those who specialized in superconductor research!) were the ones who were the most skeptical of the announcement, partially because claims of room-temperature superconductors are actually relatively common, and partially because the evidence in the paper was just atrociously bad [1]. One of the things I look forward to in an HN discussion is the comments of…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 8:55 PM UTC

kergonath wrote: post #21

Just a reminder that’s not everything one can find in a paper (never mind a preprint) is true. The response from the community was great. Modellers doing some electronic structure calculations, synthesis experts trying to re-create the material, people doing all sorts of characterisation. The closest parallel I can think of is the faster-than-light neutrinos from a couple of years ago. Except that this time there wer…

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 16, 2023, 8:56 PM UTC

graypegg wrote: post #154

You know what? I needed that saga. That was fun. I don’t think I’ve been this interested in any research project since being a kid skimming thru popular science or something :) It’s been so cool to see all of the replication studies, people talking about the latest news and all of that. Kind of a peek behind the scientific curtain to see all of the work that goes into confirming claims.