Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

nature.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 754 posts

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#461

Post by calderknight »

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…

>bash scientists who were supposedly trying to cover up their own incompetence by debunking the plucky researchers from a brave private institution

Has this really been happening?

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#462

Post by timeon »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #391
jokoon wrote: post #384

This type of story is fueled by techno-optimists who want to believe that humans can always "figure out" the universe and take advantage of the laws of physics to master their environment. I don't understand where this belief comes from, but to think that research + time = innovation is really ignorant of how technology works. It seems it's really rooted in prophetic or religious way to look at technology. Cornucopia…

>I don't understand where this belief comes from Probably the last 100 or so years where we have largely done exactly that.

Now we are going to pay for that.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#463

Post by nwiswell »

bandyaboot wrote: post #283

> in particular, copper sulfide — were responsible for the sharp drops in electrical resistivity and partial levitation over a magnet, which looked similar to properties exhibited by superconductors. Is this effect novel and/or potentially useful as a material?

Not novel. Very much the opposite. The article mentions that the original Cu2S resistivity measurements date from 1951.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#464

Post by carabiner »

duringmath wrote: post #246

It was interesting seeing real peer reviewed science from accredited labs like LLNL and Fermi get brushed aside and almost dismissed while people were cheering on this LK-99 thing. Not sure what to make of that but that's what I'll remember most about this debacle.

LLNL and Fermi did peer reviewed research on LK-99? Links?

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#465

Post by timeon »

Permit wrote: post #303
timeon wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time wasted. I have not missed this cycle. All posts and discussions I have read were pointless at best - toxic at worst.

Perhaps it’s because I am a complete outsider to the field but I found the discussions interesting and learned many new things about materials science and superconductivity that I didn’t know before. I could imagine an expert in this field having the opposite take as they almost certainly already knew the little bits of trivia that I picked up.

I'm also outsider. Glad that you have gained something.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#466

Post by gilgoomesh »

gfodor wrote: post #297

The substance produced from the paper isn't a superconductor. While extremely unlikely, there is still a chance that LK-99 is a superconductor, but the paper itself did not sufficiently describe the method needed to make it so as to replicate it properly. We will know the resolution to this once the sample from the original researchers is assessed by a third party, of which there are presently at least two to my unde…

The German team produced a crystal of pure LK-99 and tested it. From the article:

> LK-99 is not a superconductor, but an insulator with a resistance in the millions of ohms

And furthermore, the graphs from the original pre-print article are just graphs of the resistivity of Cu2S.

It sounds like there's nearly zero chance of any further science here (beyond confirmation).

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#467

Post by knodi123 »

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.

> the excitement and amount of replication on this paper was pretty fun to witness and experience

I understand a lot of people were more cautious and jaded, but this was my first go-round on the science news hype-mobile. I was really, really excited! It was a real emotional rollercoaster (if you imagine a rollercoaster that takes a couple of weeks to get anywhere).

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#468

Post by Dylan16807 »

usrbinbash wrote: post #415
Dylan16807 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheap doesn't mean free. We can already reduce resistance by piling in more cheap metal, but it becomes more effort than it's worth. And superconductors have limits on how much power they can carry. But most importantly, the power grid doesn't lose all that much to resistance. And you'd still lose power to transmission line capacitance against the ground.

> Cheap doesn't mean free Means cheap enough to be mass produced, and available. > But most importantly, the power grid doesn't lose all that much to resistance Laws of scaling, even a small percentage of power lost to resistence is a hige overall loss, the avoidance of which is desirable. And as I said, this is only the simplest example.

> Means cheap enough to be mass produced, and available.

But so are all our existing cables.

> Laws of scaling, even a small percentage of power lost to resistence is a hige overall loss, the avoidance of which is desirable.

We could cut those losses right now by making the existing cables thicker. But we don't.

Even a cheap superconductor might not be used at all in electrical grids, because the benefit isn't worth the cost.

> And as I said, this is only the simplest example.

What are the better examples?

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#469

Post by themagician »

arcticfox wrote: post #299
themagician wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who made millions off this saw something positive from it.

who made millions off of this?

The people who bought tons of shares and options on AMSC on 7/18, just a four days before the original drop. Just look at the options chain and volume. It’s outrageous.

Re: LK-99 isn’t a superconductor

#470

Post by Dylan16807 »

usrbinbash wrote: post #421
breuleux wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine a power-grid that no longer loses power to electrical resistence in the wires. From what I can see the power loss is in the 8-15% range. It'd be awesome to save that, but it's not game changing, and you have to take into account the cost of replacing the wires.

> It'd be awesome to save that, but it's not game changing An 8-15% increase in available electricity without any new power plants built isn't game changing? The ability to transport power over longer distances, making eg. solar farms in remote locations suddenly feasible projects isn't game changing? > and you have to take into account the cost of replacing the wires No I really don't have to, as we, as a species, s…

Costs are not just money. There is an environmental cost to making and installing things.

Spending the same amount of money on green power generation would probably help the biosphere much more.

> making eg. solar farms in remote locations suddenly feasible

We can already get losses down to a couple percent per thousand kilometers. Those farms are already feasible.

Post reply on HN