Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

Post by djtango » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 8:13 AM UTC

Vespasian wrote: post #146

djtango wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also don't have a culture of replication. Basically all of the post docs I worked with in the lab lamented how hard it can be to replicate reported syntheses in chemistry wet labs. Everything from humidity and altitude to undocumented "magic tricks" (eg baking something in an oven under vaccuum for a week to get.rid.of.all.the.water.) I heard anecdotes that experiments were sometimes literally only reproducible in…

In that light, industrial processes seem even more impressive. The super power of modern technology is the ability to perform precise steps on a massive scale and basically forever. Obviously it takes a lot of effort to keep the machinery running but still, the mere fact that it's running in the first place blows your mind if you think about it. Modern Machinery multiplies the impact on the world of any human who ope…

Post by comboy » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 8:56 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…

Post by drexlspivey » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:00 AM UTC

danbruc wrote: post #9

Maybe not yet the final nail in the coffin but I would no longer bet much on a successful replication. Which leaves me wondering how we got the initial papers. Does fraud make any sense, how could you possibly benefit from something like this? And if I would think that I might have produced a room temperature superconductor due to experimental errors, I would double and tripple check what I did. Assuming there is tim…

Post by joefigura » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:10 AM UTC

_0ffh wrote: post #155

joefigura wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment intrigued me, so I pulled together some information. The first paper submitted is titled "The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor." It lists three authors: Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, and Young-Wan Kwon. Its timestamp is Saturday, July 22, 2023 at 07:51:19 UTC. [1] The second paper submitted is titled "Superconductor Pb10−xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric…

Rushing out the second paper was a mistake and not a good look for the group. It would have been enough to force the retraction of Kwon's paper, and even without a retraction it's very unlikely it would have counted for anything with such weak data.

Post by brutusborn » Tue, Aug 01, 2023, 9:37 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #121

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…

If research moves more to arxiv + discussion forums rather than paid journals, sharing research results earlier seems like a good thing, not bad. If they didn't publish early, when they published maybe things would be clearer for other researchers. But by publishing earlier other people have the choice to engage with it or wait for later. Seems like many people decided to not wait, so it seems like it was a good choi…