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Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

arxiv.org

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Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#181

Post by jboggan »

cthalupa wrote: post #180
jboggan wrote: post #179

I think this theoretical result by Griffin at the Livermore Lab explains why labs are having difficulty replicating the LK-99 sample: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2307.16892.pdf There are basically two repeating crystal cells. Her theoretical calculation shows superconducting properties when you substitute one cell for copper, but not the other. The "bad" substitution is a lower energy substitution that occurs more easily.…

Her* But the paper is exciting, particularly with people now independently recreating the diamagnetic effect.

Her*, thank you.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#182

Post by zarzavat »

p-e-w wrote: post #54
peyton wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once the findings are published in a peer-reviewed journal, which Kim says is in the works, he will support anyone who wants to create and test LK-99 for themselves. [1] Sounds like that’s the plan once they’ve secured the Nature paper. [1]: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2384782-room-temperatur...

Sounds like they have it the wrong way round. Considering the uncertainty surrounding all of this, and the initial problems with replication, why would Nature publish this before it has been independently replicated? Not sure what they're worried about here. They already have priority, and if this replicates, every journal on Earth will be fighting over the privilege to publish it.

Pride. They don’t want to be remembered for some incomplete Arxiv preprint. They want to be remembered for the finished paper in a top level journal.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#183

Post by ryukoposting »

ryukoposting wrote: post #161
vasco wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is a great philosophy in software, where meaningful contributions can be made by any given person with a laptop. It's not as compelling when the only people who can meaningfully advance the research need to spend millions in grant money and/or allocate time to use expensive equipment that's shared across other research groups.

Just want to add to this thought: this isn't to say I believe the status quo in academia isn't antiquated. It is. My point is that we can't just "take open source and move it over there," so to speak.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#184

Post by matthewdgreen »

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…

This is an incredibly high-profile type of result, so in this case people are willing to spend a lot of resources replicating this result, even if the paper appears half-baked and unfinished. Most scientific results aren’t like that: people will be enthusiastic about polished work but won’t waste any time on something half-baked. Think about how many “Show HN” posts don’t get voted up to the front page. Now imagine there is no HN and no voting system to rank posts, and also you didn’t have anyone test your code so your cool project immediately crashes on 50% of browsers.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#185

Post by kumarski »

schappim wrote: post #75

For the non-chemists/physicists: Recently[1], there was an exciting claim that a new type of material could conduct electricity perfectly at room temperature (this is what is meant by "superconductivity")[4]. This material was a version of lead-apatite [2], a type of mineral, that was altered with certain additions and made by combining two other materials, lanarkite and copper phosphide. The researchers writing this…

My thoughts echoed. https://twitter.com/datarade/status/1685459221926547457?s=20

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#186

Post by K5EiS »

alexmolas wrote: post #141

This is another example of why to do great science you need to do great engineering. The original group rushed to publish the paper without polishing the details, and now other groups are struggling to replicate their results.

They didnt rush to publish it, one of them just did it without the others knowing IIRC

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#187

Post by NolF »

alexmolas wrote: post #141

This is another example of why to do great science you need to do great engineering. The original group rushed to publish the paper without polishing the details, and now other groups are struggling to replicate their results.

There is apparently a whole bunch of controversy with the paper being published by one of the authors that had been allegedly kicked out and wanted to ensure he was credited as an author. The other authors were apparently still working on the paper, production methods etc but this unauthorised early publication derailed that.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#189

Post by DannyBee »

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…

The thing is - there is a totally easy and simple mechanism to create early-stage believability.

Take a video of you producing and testing it, with a mobile phone.

It only works 10% of the time? Not an issue, post 10 videos. Whatever.

Would it be perfect? No, of course it could be faked.

But i guaranteed people would be a ton less skeptical and willing to push hard on this if the original authors had done this sort of thing.

It's honestly not that hard to set up a tripod and a mobile phone, and even in the circumstances here, where they apparently got pushed to publish quickly, it could still show that it works.

It also would help those trying to reproduce see exactly what you did, in detail.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#190

Post by guerrilla »

michaelt wrote: post #174
guerrilla wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you don't know the history. They were doing other unrelated things in the meantime, not working in this.

I'm aware of that. But if I was an early-career researcher looking to establish myself, secure funding and maybe a tenure-track position, and I had a nobel-prize-winning discovery up my sleeve, I can't imagine many things that would take precedence. I mean, obviously whatever happened happened. It just seems strange to simultaneously claim to have discovered something 24 years ago, and to have been rushed into publis…

> It just seems strange to simultaneously claim to have discovered something 24 years ago, and to have been rushed into publishing prematurely.

They had to get other jobs to survive. Somone else forced their hand with the publication. There's nothing incosistent about that.

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