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Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

arxiv.org

201–210 of 269 posts

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#201
post #54
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.

> why would Nature publish this before it has been independently replicated?

Because it's Nature?

We're not talking about Organic Syntheses [0], which has replicated every paper before publishing since 1921.

[0] https://www.orgsyn.org/

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#202
post #99
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that’s the scientific method? It would be entirely infeasible for them to require someone else to test the sample. I don’t think you’ve been in academia?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But seriously, why can't they ship their sample somewhere?

They are busy trying to characterise it properly and making sure they understand what they have created. At least that's what they ought to be doing if this isn't a big scam.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#203
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at some of the most ground-breaking research papers in the history of science, such as the Watson/Crick DNA structure papers. They literally discovered the core of life itself, which is infinitely more important than a room-temperature superconductor. Yet they are incredibly modest about it, and don't waste a single sentence waxing philosophical about what all this means etc. In a similar vein, Andrew Wiles anno…

Nice to be modest after building off of Rosalind Franklin's unaccredited work.

But she is brought up constantly and annoyingly in this regard. Why be a negative Nancy? There’s books from not long after the discovery that tell her story. You don’t think there are people who are legitimately forgotten in the process of every discovery?

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#204
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.

What is the difference? I would argue it is more important to publish early when using shared expensive equipment, since there is a huge opportunity cost to wasting resources when better information exists.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just materials science though. I’m a longtime reader of Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline blog, and he often emphasizes the trickiness of lab work and lab techniques. But the model we have of science from elementary and high school doesn’t give us room for the random, ephemeral things that come into play in actual experimental work. Our model is methods equal result, every time, even though jiggling your foot a little…

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…

A chemical well-it-works-on-my-computer experiment. Nice!

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#206

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…

The simple truth is we don’t have a culture of replication because no one is paying and no one is paying because no one is demanding it as part of the incentive system that the money is part of… If a prerequisite of publication in a top tier journal was someone having replicated the work… anyone at all… then the quality of write up would improve dramatically because all the stuff that never gets written up would be w…

> If a prerequisite of publication in a top tier journal was someone having replicated the work… anyone at all

For a SciFi take on this see the section "A Note on Governance" at https://eldraeverse.com/2018/05/25/approach-vector-2-2/. Specifically, the "Dean of Evidence".

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#207
Seems there is new support that its legit!

https://twitter.com/Andercot/status/1686215574177841152

National Lab (LBNL) results support LK-99 as a room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor.

Simulations published 1 hour ago on arxiv support LK-99 as the holy grail of modern material science and applied physics.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.16892

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#208
post #150

What they have produced is clearly not LK-99. They write that: " As shown in Figure 9, the x-ray diffraction spectrum of the ground powder of the finally sintered product is highly consistent with the x-ray diffraction spectrum reported by Lee et al.[3] and coincides well with the diffraction pattern of the apatite. This proves that we have successfully synthesized the modified lead-apatite as Lee et al.[3.4] " (Firs…

I got a similar impression from the XRD spectra, but I don't think it's correct to focus on the shifts. That could easily be a minor calibration issue. The biggest difference I see is in the peak around 44 degrees, which is very pronounced in the original work and much weaker in this work.

There are strong similarities between the XRD patterns, but considering the theoretical paper yesterday about selective site substitution being necessary to achieve superconductivity, it's reasonable to suspect that these "minor" differences may be critical.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#209
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm completely out of my league here. I was looking at the floating sample picture and it struck me as odd how the material levitates at an angle. [0] The broken part floating and the "pressed" part resting on the plate. To me, this suggests that a significant amount of the material is not the target material. Further, if the target material was evenly distributed, I'd expect that levitation properties would correlat…

To prove that point, shouldn't they cut the material in half ? and keep only the levitating part ? Why haven't they done so ?

There's a lot of reasons, mainly that's a 1-way door type of situation.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#210
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just materials science though. I’m a longtime reader of Derek Lowe’s In the Pipeline blog, and he often emphasizes the trickiness of lab work and lab techniques. But the model we have of science from elementary and high school doesn’t give us room for the random, ephemeral things that come into play in actual experimental work. Our model is methods equal result, every time, even though jiggling your foot a little…

NileRed and other Maker Channels are great to demonstrate that. In every video, there's 1 - 2 of these situations - Nile has been following some documented, established procedure which should result in a specific reaction and it looks decent to the layman - and then it just doesn't work at all. And then he re-does pretty much the same thing and it works. I can't imagine how frustrating that can be. And then you have…

It is incredibly frustrating, my experience in an experimental physics lab involved in creation of certain types of wafers for SEM characterization, there are so many things that can go wrong for certain materials. just a certain speck of dust being in the wrong place at the wrong time

It is why I quit experimental physics.

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