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LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

nature.com

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Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#441

Post by dTal »

HaZeust wrote: post #27
RationPhantoms wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing for less transparency here? I think one of the side benefits to witnessing the LK-99 discussion is people from all walks (sure, Twitter/X isn't the end all/be-all of global communication) discussing/following/listening to actual science happen. Do you know how much of that is worth to the world with knock-on effects? Maybe there were future material scientists sitting in the room with their parents lis…

You cannot please these people, simply put. These folks STILL want the ESSENCE of a shared respect and excitement from the common man for scientific progression - and these folks are the same people, mind you, that speak loudly on the ignorance of the cluster groups within the "anti-science" big tent. But when these same folks see a glimpse of collective curiosity for science and methodologies among a lot of people,…

Not-that-unpopular opinion: Some form of soft gatekeeping is required to keep a healthy signal/noise ratio, in a lot of contexts.

The issue is, what sort of gatekeeping, and how aligned is it with the desired effect? Even simply crudely throwing up all sorts of arbitrary obstacles (e.g. various forms of academic hazing) is sufficient to at least keep out people who aren't willing to put in some sort of effort. The problem is that has a lot of collateral damage - it also loses perfectly fine people whose only flaw is a low tolerance for institutionally imposed arbitrary obstacles. A perfect gatekeeping mechanism would exclude everyone who can't contribute while presenting minimal obstacles to those who can. I don't want to speculate here what that might look like, but it's not contradictory to want everyone to have access to science while simultaneously wanting ignorant loudmouths to be gently suppressed.

If I may mutilate a beloved Pixar film, "anyone can science". But not everyone can be a scientist. Everyone should just be given a chance.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#442

Post by the_only_law »

xwdv wrote: post #135
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.

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…

> Now I have to walk back explanations I gave to various people and explain LK-99 actually isn’t special at all. I will look like a god damn idiot.

Maybe, but I have immensely more respect for someone who can just admit they were wrong compared to someone who bends over backwards to justify their incorrectness.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#443

Post by chmod600 »

adrian_b wrote: post #179
chmod600 wrote: post #38

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

There is no such thing as ferromagnetic levitation (i.e. there is no stable position). Nevertheless, a piece of ferromagnetic material which has a permanent remanent magnetization (which is possible only for a subset of the ferromagnetic materials) when put on a magnet may take a position close to vertical, with one edge pressed on the magnet. It is very easy to verify if this is what you see by moving the piece of m…

Thank you for the informative reply.

Given that it's so easy for the experimenter to verify, you are saying that the most credible explanation is scientific fraud?

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#444

Post by floxy »

cogman10 wrote: post #410
drdeca wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had heard the parts about "probably wouldn't be a big deal for CPU performance" and "probably wouldn't be great for energy storage", but I hadn't heard the point about "we use less efficient materials for power grid transmission than we could, because of costs". I suppose I didn't expect that we necessarily had like, the "absolute most efficient that could be made" (if that is something substantially more complicat…

The crux of the problem for superconductors used as power delivery is the "critical field" problem. [1] Super conductors are superconductive to a point. Once that point is crossed they turn into regular conductors. (I've seen ~1A cited. For context, EVs charge at around 500A). To make them useful for power transmission, you'd have to up the voltage to insane levels to avoid collapsing the field. [1] https://en.wikipe…

Superconductors have a critical current density (Ampere/m^2) that varies with temperature and external magnetic field[0]. So if you want more current, you need to use a bigger wire (and/or make it cooler). YBCO HTS tapes have enough current density for power transmission[1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yttrium_barium_copper_oxide#/m...

[1] https://www.amsc.com/comed-and-amsc-announce-successful-inte...

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#446

Post by bacon_waffle »

dekhn wrote: post #420
bacon_waffle wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why criticize? People spend their time and money on pointless pursuits all the time.

My goal in criticism is to guide interested players towards more fruitful pursuits. I don't want to see invalid science sucking up all the attention and crowding out legitimate but boring science.

Negative experimental results are valid science, aren't they?

If you believe attention is a 0-sum game (I don't, but am trying to understand), why not focus criticism on those people spending time on any number of other pursuits that are even further from fruitful. It just seems like, for whatever your idea of "fruitful" is, there are entire industries and institutions that are focused on taking attention away from fruitful pursuits.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#447

Post by chmod600 »

If the video showed ferromagnetism, which parts of the material and/or impurities are ferromagnetic enough for that to happen?

If none, does that mean scientific fraud (e.g. adding an impurity intentionally), or is there another credible explanation?

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#448

Post by imiric »

jschveibinz wrote: post #266
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.

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 some…

> This whole process has been super healthy

Has it, though?

The South Korean paper claimed to have found "The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor". It took a month for researchers around the world to essentially debunk this.

Science works by peer review, yes, but that should have never been a claim to begin with. They were blinded by excitement of the results and eager to publish the paper, instead of being conservative and making sure they got everything right.

Now it's clear that they missed several key aspects that seem trivial in retrospect. It's just sloppy science.

Sure, this caused much excitement in science nerds everywhere, and the media got more ad impressions, but overall I wouldn't qualify this particular event as "super healthy".

Coincidentally, or not, this[1] is currently on the front page.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37137405

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#449

Post by jacquesm »

xwdv wrote: post #135
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.

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…

> Now I have to walk back explanations I gave to various people and explain LK-99 actually isn’t special at all. I will look like a god damn idiot.

And that's just LK-99. You could easily be just as mistaken about other things. If you start confusing possibles with absolutes things get messy really quickly.

> By the time a true room temp superconductor comes out, it probably won’t be in our lifetimes.

It could happen tomorrow, next week, next year, within the next 500 years or later or even never at all. And that still wouldn't prove that no such thing exists. We just do not know.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#450

Post by jacquesm »

kergonath wrote: post #175
putnambr wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you skip over "In almost all applications of superconductors, they don't use high-temperature ones for one simple reason: Material properties." They're saying that LHC does not use a ceramic, and therefore high-temperature, superconductor; instead they use metallic (cooled) superconductors because they can be molded.

The sentence still does not make sense because the superconductors in the LHC (though, rereading it a couple of times it is somewhat ambiguous) are not high temperature by any definition. Also, again, ceramic high-temperature superconductors are metallic, or they would not be conductors. “Ceramic” and “metallic” are not mutually exclusive in material sciences. There are lots of reasons to use more classical supercond…

This should not be downvoted.
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