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LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

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Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#121

Post by discreteevent »

tinco wrote: post #83
throw0101a wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do these prediction markets produce ? Some people are saying "yes" and others are saying "no", and the answer is either "yes" or "no", but why bother spending money on predicting when society can spend money on replicating it? Wouldn't an actual replication attempt be more useful? > The latter is a perfectly reasonable thing to do - it's not easy for an average person to "pay off some lab", but if they provide l…

They're producing the wisdom of the crowd, which is a real and highly accurate piece of information. It's quite difficult and expensive to produce information as fast and reliable by other means. And they don't cost much, it's mostly money being moved around. edit: I interpreted it as asking wether prediction markets in general produce value. In this specific case I'm 100% with you, they're absolutely useless in pred…

The opinion of a crowd is "real and highly accurate"? The opinion of crowds is frequently completely disconnected from reality. Crowds are often an amplifier of individual delusion. As for accuracy, the only thing the opinion of a crowd is accurate about is the opinion of that particular crowd (not even "the crowd" - look at election polling)

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#122

Post by alecst »

dawnofdusk wrote: post #96
alecst wrote: post #90

I’m not an expert, but I’ve used superconductors (I believe YBCO) when I taught physics lab. We cooled samples down with liquid nitrogen and put them over a magnet. They levitate, but not like in the video that the Korean team released. True superconductors enjoy “flux pinning”, meaning wherever you put them on a magnet, they’ll freeze in that position (or move around an axis of constant flux.) In the LK-99 video tha…

Type-II super conductors may exhibit "flux pinning". Type-I super conductors do not.

Cool thanks. Gonna read up a little on that.

Edit: yea it's interesting. Believe it or not, I studied L-G theory in grad school, taught a lab about (type-II) superconductors, but had no idea that type-I superconductors didn't flux pin.

Just leaving this here from Wikipedia:

> The superconductor must be a type-II superconductor because type-I superconductors cannot be penetrated by magnetic fields. Some type-I superconductors can experience the effects of flux pinning if they are thin enough. If the material's thickness is comparable to the London penetration depth, the magnetic field can pass through the material.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flux_pinning

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#124

Post by aqme28 »

dist-epoch wrote: post #86
toth wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of instictive negative reaction to prediction markets is, unfortunately, common, but, I think, misguided. Prediction markets are one of the (or just, the?) best ways of aggregating knowledge from multiple sources and producing the best predictions. Having good legible predictions of impactful events such as LK-99 replication is extremely useful for society - it would be an invaluable input for a savvy polic…

How about this scenario: I am the PI of a laboratory. I buy up the market and (falsely) announce that I succeeded in replication. Sell and make profit. Then a couple of days later I announce that I made a terrible mistake. How do you prevent this scenario? I did nothing illegal, I just "not noticed the mistake I made".

Or the opposite. I successfully replicate in my lab, but the price on Yes is high, so I make a post about how there definitely isn't superconductivity, buy up all the Yes, and then say "Woops I made a mistake. It really does superconduct."

OP is downplaying the shenanigans that can go on here.

The only way to prevent it is some sort of SEC insider trading or market manipulation laws.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#125

Post by aqme28 »

alecst wrote: post #90

I’m not an expert, but I’ve used superconductors (I believe YBCO) when I taught physics lab. We cooled samples down with liquid nitrogen and put them over a magnet. They levitate, but not like in the video that the Korean team released. True superconductors enjoy “flux pinning”, meaning wherever you put them on a magnet, they’ll freeze in that position (or move around an axis of constant flux.) In the LK-99 video tha…

They claim that only a small part of that sample is superconducting, and that's why it shows that unusual behavior.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#126

Post by Turskarama »

japoco wrote: post #120
Turskarama wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LK-99 is a brand new material that almost nobody knows anything about. The market is not a knowledge aggregate, it is vibes based.

You are severely underestimating how good vibes from a lot of people are at giving good estimates.

There has to be _some_ level of knowledge to base it off though, this is just hope.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#127

Post by codethief »

dist-epoch wrote: post #86
toth wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of instictive negative reaction to prediction markets is, unfortunately, common, but, I think, misguided. Prediction markets are one of the (or just, the?) best ways of aggregating knowledge from multiple sources and producing the best predictions. Having good legible predictions of impactful events such as LK-99 replication is extremely useful for society - it would be an invaluable input for a savvy polic…

How about this scenario: I am the PI of a laboratory. I buy up the market and (falsely) announce that I succeeded in replication. Sell and make profit. Then a couple of days later I announce that I made a terrible mistake. How do you prevent this scenario? I did nothing illegal, I just "not noticed the mistake I made".

I believe that falls under insider trading.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#128

Post by stevehawk »

twic wrote: post #56
throwaway849755 wrote: post #21

Is there any HN effect by which enough contrary early opinion here could increase the odds of eventual triumph? On the chance that there is, I will do my part: In mice.

No synthesis. Less critical current than YBCO. Lame.

oh god i understood this reference. we love you cmdrtaco

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#129

Post by zarzavat »

dawnofdusk wrote: post #96
alecst wrote: post #90

I’m not an expert, but I’ve used superconductors (I believe YBCO) when I taught physics lab. We cooled samples down with liquid nitrogen and put them over a magnet. They levitate, but not like in the video that the Korean team released. True superconductors enjoy “flux pinning”, meaning wherever you put them on a magnet, they’ll freeze in that position (or move around an axis of constant flux.) In the LK-99 video tha…

Type-II super conductors may exhibit "flux pinning". Type-I super conductors do not.

As far as I understand it (not an expert on these things), flux pinning is caused by microscopic defects that allow the magnetic field to penetrate at certain points. An idealized superconductor that is perfectly uniform expels the magnetic field at all points and so would not display the effect, it would simply be diamagnetic. So it’s mistaken and somewhat perverse to view the absence of flux pinning as proof that something is not a superconductor.

In the case of LK99, the claim is that it does not show flux pinning because the sample is impure and not uniformly superconductive, i.e. it is not expelling the magnetic field enough.

Re: LK-99: The live online race for a room-temperature superconductor

#130

Post by sgregnt »

tinco wrote: post #79
toth wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of instictive negative reaction to prediction markets is, unfortunately, common, but, I think, misguided. Prediction markets are one of the (or just, the?) best ways of aggregating knowledge from multiple sources and producing the best predictions. Having good legible predictions of impactful events such as LK-99 replication is extremely useful for society - it would be an invaluable input for a savvy polic…

Not to take away from your point, but there is a better way than prediction markets, and that's careful objective research by non-experts ( https://goodjudgment.com/ ). It's been shown that teams of such researchers consistently beat prediction markets on these sorts of topics. Anecdotal evidence suggests it might be that the presence of experts and cultural preconceptions corrupt prediction markets enough to diverge…

> it has been shown ...

Can you please share your sources?

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