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Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

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Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#171

Post by mtillman »

DarmokJalad1701 wrote: post #148
blackkettle wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was not actually about the ultimate result of replication. This guy undoubtably performed an indirect marketing coup for his company by engaging competently on this tangentially related topic and then following through. In my experience though, if he had made any effort to link those two things prior to doing this - e.g. by proposing this as an internally sponsored marketing stunt - it would probably have be…

Eh, I have met the CEO of Varda. They are very much a startup and have that startup energy. One of the founders of Varda has been very vocally supportive of this on Twitter as well.

Of course, this is all Varda IP as they’re in California and anything a head of research performs that generates IP is owned by the employer.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#172

Post by devwastaken »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #40

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…

Private R&D has always towered above academics. People who can compete create significant innovations. People who can't compete stay as professors doing research because it's the easiest and most convenient pathway.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#173

Post by generalizations »

svara wrote: post #161
anonylizard wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is simply what post-peer-review looks like. Instead of a few anonymous peer reviews, you get the entire planet to replicate. Moment you get something meaningful, publish it on arxiv. Quantity, not quality is king. Anomalies are drowned out by large samples. Questionable methods get mass debated in public. Scientists are dependent on public funding, why squander the biggest moment in pop science for literal decad…

> Questionable methods get mass debated in public. By people who don't know what they're talking about. You're seriously underestimating the level of expertise that it takes to professionally assess most research. It wouldn't be unusual for there to be a small handful of people with that ability in the world.

What matters is the discovery of new things that are true, that we can do engineering with. Publication by youtube & arxiv doesn't have to be oriented at public consumption - it works just as well when it's by-researchers, for-researchers. Except without gatekeeping, people like McCalip can participate too. Who cares who's sitting on the sidelines? In post-peer-review, industry-funded academics rush a paper to a preprint server, a space engineer replicates it, and someone else figures out how to mass-produce it, and we get room-temp ambient-pressure superconductors, and we know we did because the engineering works.

This works just as well with less exciting tech, because the point is that we collaboratively learned how to build something.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#174

Post by willis936 »

pm215 wrote: post #82
Torkel wrote: 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…

Ever felt schedule pressure / been on the critical path? This is that concept applied globally. The hurry is that delays in initial research measurably delays potential rollout. I'd like to see this material meaningfully used in my lifetime for its potential global society wide benefits / ease of human suffering / margin on total ecological collapse. The pace set now affects the mean and standard deviation of probability of that happening on the timeline.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#175

Post by terrut »

epups wrote: post #144
sanxiyn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More than that, she calculated how high it will float, and how height will depend on temperature, before starting the experiment, and confirmed all her predictions.

Wow, that's hugely impressive! Where can I find more info about this? Is it all on twitter?

She has been alluding to old Soviet scientists having a theoretical foundation for the type of conductivity shown. She posted a link to this comment that explains some of the background: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36996337

Check out her twitter for some real fun rants @iris_IGB

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#176

Post by Loic »

alberth wrote: post #115

ELI5, can someone please. This stuff is over my head (what I'm looking at, ramifications, etc) I'm also confused because I see conflicting things (e.g. "room temperature" but video says "500C"). Also, is this real or fake? I've seen comments on both.

500°C/min cool. This is the cooling rate. It should be written 500K/min. He explains that he had no data about the cooling rate from the original paper and as such is going to test several rates.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#177

Post by thepasswordis »

baq wrote: post #45
OJFord wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're joking, I'd 100% assume it, except that I ran into some truly bizarre US patriotism while trying to follow McCalip's updates a few days ago - last relevant one I could find was 'materials coming tomorrow' on 27th, but then I couldn't find anything about using them or any update. Just a decent into people tweeting (in thread) about how great America is, the best country, etc. Really surreal. Think it wa…

It's jarring for us Euros (I dunno, ghosts of the war are still alive maybe?), but it's pretty normal stateside.

Are you saying Europeans dont have any national pride?

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#178

Post by mcpackieh »

anonylizard wrote: post #112
DoingIsLearning wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first pre-print came out on 22 July (if I am not mistaken). Not enough time has passed pure and simple. If I was an academic working on this, I would be following the Sagan Standard and triple checking my results before claiming anything. I think we are all suffering from 24 hour news cycles. The work in China and now Varda is very exciting but they are warp speed developments.

This is simply what post-peer-review looks like. Instead of a few anonymous peer reviews, you get the entire planet to replicate. Moment you get something meaningful, publish it on arxiv. Quantity, not quality is king. Anomalies are drowned out by large samples. Questionable methods get mass debated in public. Scientists are dependent on public funding, why squander the biggest moment in pop science for literal decad…

> This is simply what post-peer-review looks like.

Peer review was never a substitute for replication in the first place. In this sense we've been "post-peer-review" the entire time.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#179

Post by mikeyouse »

thepasswordis wrote: post #167
huijzer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not a single big academic lab has managed to complete any sort of replication to date! They are still busy getting approvals from three layers of management and one group of lawyers.

Don’t forget the DEA. The reason the Varda team even took this long is because they couldn’t get red phosphorus.

You just have to be registered / approved with the DEA — most labs are and can freely order phosphorus and almost other chemicals with no further burden. Seems like Varda didn’t have any prior use for restricted chemicals so they hadn’t registered yet, a not uncommon situation that will be quickly resolved for their next attempts I’m sure.

Re: Andrew McCalip demonstrates synthesis of LK99

#180

Post by [deleted] »

yxhuvud wrote: post #64
tw1984 wrote: post #56

the really amazing part of the LK99 is that you don't any big name with access to some national labs to demonstrate that for you, all you need is some high school lab equipments and some very basic understanding of the subject.

Yes and no. You still need access to red phosphorous which is not all that easy to get hold of.

[deleted]
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