Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt • Hacker News Board

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#101

Post by SamPatt » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:08 AM UTC

progman32 wrote: post #90

p-e-w wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at some of the most ground-breaking research papers in the history of science, such as the Watson/Crick DNA structure papers. They literally discovered the core of life itself, which is infinitely more important than a room-temperature superconductor. Yet they are incredibly modest about it, and don't waste a single sentence waxing philosophical about what all this means etc. In a similar vein, Andrew Wiles anno…

I'm perfectly willing to forgive some hubris if their claims turn out to be accurate. Watson and Crick are not a great choice of role model for good character.

I read The Double Helix, Watson's autobiography (which I enjoyed), what are you referring to that he failed to mention?

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#102

Post by sp332 » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:11 AM UTC

numpad0 wrote: post #100

bestcoder69 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could be a skill issue on the part of the replicators? The russian anime girl scientist had to make a bunch of modifications (and was cursing the orig authors) before she could make her rocks float.

a nitpick - I think it's more likely that person is he/him. anime is gender and masculinity averse/avoidant so everyone/everything is depicted in girly tone, else they don't exist

Her name is Iris and she’s lesbian.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#103

Post by divbzero » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:16 AM UTC

I’m surprised/impressed by the quick turnaround between the original LK99 paper submitted on 22 Jul 2023 and this reproduction attempt submitted on 31 Jul 2023. Could there have been a pre-print of the original paper that allowed the reproduction attempt to begin earlier?

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#104

Post by regular_trash » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:18 AM UTC

simplicio wrote: post #33

Azrael3000 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently a new paper is supposed to come out from the original authors about the production method [0]. So it really is unclear whether everybody generates the same material. It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. [0] https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-tempe...

Seems the fastest way to clear this up would just be for the original team to send a sample to some other scientists for testing. That would solve any issues regarding other teams reproducing the material incorrectly, and at a first pass, what everyone cares about is whether its a superconductor at room temp, not how to make it.

This assumes the chemical structure is stable, which may not be the case. If the material is truly not superconductive at room temperature, it will take a long time to gather enough diverse experimental evidence to build a scientific consensus. A good rule of thumb is probably 3 months to reproduce, 6 months to discredit.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#105

Post by rex_lupi » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:29 AM UTC

Mistletoe wrote: post #92

I get a strong feeling that this guy is like the lab that said they found life that didn’t use phosphorous for dna a few years back. I think it just turned out to be shoddy lab work and not accounting for contaminants in their lab chemicals. https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2012.9861 If you find something extremely rare that rewrites what we know you need to be damn sure that what you are saying is true. But so…

I mean, from the circumstances it seems quite evident they believe in what they're saying. Fyi they've been working on this material since 1999

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#106

Post by dmvdoug » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:35 AM UTC

lucubratory wrote: post #98

Everyone in this thread needs to understand that particularly for materials science, and particularly when there is bad methodology documentation, it is really, really normal for early replication attempts to fail. What works in one lab will often need to be adjusted to work in another, with different equipment, altitude, humidity, all sorts of stuff. Making it even worse, apparently the original team can't even get…

Not just materials science though. I’m a longtime reader of Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline blog, and he often emphasizes the trickiness of lab work and lab techniques. But the model we have of science from elementary and high school doesn’t give us room for the random, ephemeral things that come into play in actual experimental work. Our model is methods equal result, every time, even though jiggling your foot a little bit to get the feeling back may have somehow made your small molecule production have less binding affinity or something. And yes, eventually you figure that out and stop jiggling your foot but two years have passed.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#107

Post by lucubratory » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:37 AM UTC

dmvdoug wrote: post #106

lucubratory wrote: post #98

Everyone in this thread needs to understand that particularly for materials science, and particularly when there is bad methodology documentation, it is really, really normal for early replication attempts to fail. What works in one lab will often need to be adjusted to work in another, with different equipment, altitude, humidity, all sorts of stuff. Making it even worse, apparently the original team can't even get…

Not just materials science though. I’m a longtime reader of Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline blog, and he often emphasizes the trickiness of lab work and lab techniques. But the model we have of science from elementary and high school doesn’t give us room for the random, ephemeral things that come into play in actual experimental work. Our model is methods equal result, every time, even though jiggling your foot a little…

Absolutely, ultimate failures to replicate are generally multiple labs across dozens and dozens of attempts and continuous communication with the authors. And yeah, it's a thing in science in general, materials science is just particularly susceptible because of the nature of the work.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#108

Post by RF_Savage » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:39 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #81

tnecniv wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally (at least in my field), that’s beyond the scope of peer review in the traditional sense. Peer review typically just involves review of just the material submitted to the journal (manuscript, data, maybe code depending on its size and complexity). Depending on the experiment, reproducing a result may require resources, equipment, or skills unavailable to the reviewer or that cannot be acquired in a reasonable…

That's true but if a reputable journal publishes this before that verification is in and it ends up being mistaken or even a hoax or fraud then their reputation will be dinged so with the stakes this high given the material and the visibility there is a fair chance that they will indeed wait for independent replication before committing to publishing it. But I don't see it happening during the peer review process its…

How can you replicate it before the paper with the stuff to replicate is published?

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#109

Post by harry8 » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:42 AM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #97

harry8 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Saying nothing about these specific papers, in general I disagree strongly. I find the peer review process to be extremely flawed. If you get a bunch of interest from experts in the field on the internet who comment and do work to understand, replicate and analyse (and without hiding behind fake-anonymity) that is a million times…

For these papers in particular, it seems like peer review was badly needed before publication. Sure, it's a meme that Reviewer 2 is always going to complain that could you please run like, 50 more experiments, and for something as potentially groundbreaking as room-temp superconductor, even more so. But one of the main issues with the papers right now is their chemistry is deficient. The key chemical reactions don't…

Sure and all of that is coming out in public with people's names and reputations attached to it. So we're certainly not behind on any of those issues. I say there are very real benefits too.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#110

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 5:45 AM UTC

RF_Savage wrote: post #108

jacquesm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true but if a reputable journal publishes this before that verification is in and it ends up being mistaken or even a hoax or fraud then their reputation will be dinged so with the stakes this high given the material and the visibility there is a fair chance that they will indeed wait for independent replication before committing to publishing it. But I don't see it happening during the peer review process its…

How can you replicate it before the paper with the stuff to replicate is published?

It would be a variation on what's already out there right now. And the whole problem is that the recipe is vague, in other words even if they have a working sample they don't know exactly what goes into making it.