Live data from Hacker News

Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

twitter.com

151–160 of 363 posts

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#151
post #7
post #4

I don't see why people go crazy over this, the meissner effect in superconductors look different.

I don't understand what you're not seeing. Nobody is saying that the whole LK-99 sample is superconducting. Why would you expect the whole sample to float, instead of "partial floating" as we're seeing, if you have a material that's only partially superconducting?

So if we increased the magnitude of the magnetic field (e.g. by using an electric magnet), why couldn't we still have the sample float? Or does the Meissner effect not relate to the magnitude of the magnetic flux?

Unless, of course, the other end is attracting the magnet.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#152
post #143
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the 1000 C furnace is nothing to sneeze at either.

These are rather common. Often used in metalworking for steel hardening.

yeah but OP said 'high school lab'... which granted may be true in the US but certainly not what I'd call 'common' or even 'rare' where I live. a good description would be 'completely unheard of'.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, that Russian anime girl shud not be getting any credit, I don’t say this because of her anonymity but because of her absolute refusal to take a video or do absolutely anything that can make outsiders trust her claims.

I don't understand why she would be like this. Why would anyone hold back the production process for a material that could change humanity forever?

Lots of bizarre pro-Soviet behaviour from her as well which feels somehow connected

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#154
post #82
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As engineers we are given building blocks that we can build things from. Iron, steel, copper, plastic. Every once in a while a new building block arrives. It takes a while for us to figure out how to use it. But when we do, the world changes. - batteries + touch screens => iPhone - batteries got better => Tesla - reinforced concrete => pretty much all the worlds buildings and bridges - neodymium magnets + gyros => dr…

We're in a hurry in the sense that we don't want to leave investigation of this on the back burner for a few months, but we're not in a hurry in the sense that it's going to make any difference in practice whether a lab group reports today that they've reproduced it, or takes a bit more time to be careful and reports more thoroughly in two weeks time. Any first mover advantages are likely to accrue to the groups who…

The point is not whether it takes one week or two weeks.

But eastern competition is fierce, and the western world is mired in esg and bureaucracy.

Something is rotten at a general level, and if its not fixed soon, this trend of lagging behind will also start manifesting where it starts to hurt.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#155
post #80

This makes me extremely bullish about Varda Space, they have engineers of high quality and expertise that they could do a decent replication very quickly (if they got access to raw materials earlier, they might have been first to do so, comparable with the Chinese Groups) while working on their off time (from what I’ve seen of their twitter) and not a single big academic lab has managed to complete any sort of replic…

World first replication was done by Iris Alexandra using her own accelerated process and there is no way Varda Space could have beaten her.

A worthless replication. Grainy photos of supposed samples floating. When asked for videos she just insulted the people asking for videos to no end and to date has not provided any. No measurements provided either.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last point doesn't make much sense since there were multiple prior similar demonstrations. It's still a prediction made after the experiment has concluded and the results are widely disseminated.

To my knowledge this is the first ever demonstration to show the exactly same thing as Q-center's original video (partly because this sample is much larger than others), so I believe my argument is probably safe. But I understand your and GP's judgements given the recent craze. To be fair, I'm still conservative about the whole thing, but it does look clear to me that we are witnessing the conflict between two big th…

This isn't a big deal but to explain a bit why it came off wrong, sometimes I have a hard time socially and wish people would just explain their reactions instead of focusing on having the reaction:

- It's not the first, to wit, the repro's author pointing out it looks the same as effect from China repro from...3 days ago? Time is elusive.

- The Russian catgirl superconductor theory stuff is a blind alley, you've gone very far down it for someone without physics/chemistry background, it's unintelligible to people who haven't followed the sociology of every repro attempt and people who do have a background and know that's a massive theoretical question that can't be resolved via twitter or LK99, particularly when we're still figuring out LK99

- It's odd to reframe news of a room temperature superconductor as a "conflict between two theories of SC", we're just scratching the surface, we're months and months away from that, if it is resolvable at all.

- You've gotten wrapped up in the meta and express it via namecalling in a way that distracts, c.f.

---- my reference to the "stupid shit" quote.

---- "crackpot versus legit scientists": what I call They'ing, what smarter people would call creating dichotomous groups out of thin air and then attributing positions to them.

---- "recent craze" "still conservative": the metajudgements don't contribute anything and there's plenty of it to be found, it's mostly gone/downvoted on HN over last 24-48 hours because it became stifling.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, that Russian anime girl shud not be getting any credit, I don’t say this because of her anonymity but because of her absolute refusal to take a video or do absolutely anything that can make outsiders trust her claims.

I don't understand why she would be like this. Why would anyone hold back the production process for a material that could change humanity forever?

Why? Simple, there's lots of mentally ill people on this planet. Anime profile pictures are usualy a redflag. These kind of people should only be ignored since they never want to cooperate.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#158

The humility is refreshing, compared to anime girl. Also, the photos/videos are not shot using a potato.

Exactly, that Russian anime girl shud not be getting any credit, I don’t say this because of her anonymity but because of her absolute refusal to take a video or do absolutely anything that can make outsiders trust her claims.

Looks like there's at least three other people in front of Andrew on the "first floaty flake replication" list[0], and something like four more efforts where the flakes didn't float which arguably still counts as replications.

[1]: https://eirifu.wordpress.com/2023/07/30/lk-99-superconductor...

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#159
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturalize the Russian, problem solved.

Seeing her tweets, I doubt she wants to exercise this option.

Yes, I laughed when I saw that comment. I believe she would be denied entry to the US based on the questions that screen out communists, although because the particular question mentions a party and I don't believe she's a CPRF member it's possible it wouldn't apply. Regardless, not a good fit on either end of the relationship.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#160
post #124
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

World first replication was done by Iris Alexandra using her own accelerated process and there is no way Varda Space could have beaten her.

>> World first replication was done by Iris Alexandra using her own accelerated process and there is no way Varda Space could have beaten her. World first public replication As much respect for her as I have & as much I’ve enjoyed watching this pan out, a U.S. DoE affiliated lab or other nation states’ equivalent likely did something in the same timeframe. People working in those labs are unfathomably smart & talente…

Do you have any evidence or are you just speculating?

I don't doubt that the people working in these labs are very smart and talented, perfectly capable of their own replication attempt. But would they rush to try replicating it immediately after the paper's publication?

Post reply on HN