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Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

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Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#261

Post by KennyBlanken »

mattfrommars wrote: post #260

Makes me wonder if ChatGPT can be leverage as a tool be used to come up with room temperate superconductor material which human haven't thought of before? ChatGPT is literally built on collective human knowledge and massive amount of data. If ChatGPT has the power to replace software developer, this should be childplays.

Only on HN could someone say "well if a statistical language model can 'replace' a software developer, then one of the holy grails of material science should be child's play."

Because clearly being a software developer is more difficult than scientific research...

This is everyone's daily reminder that ChatGPT is not deterministic, does not think, does not reason, etc. It is a statistical language model that has been fed everything from star trek to research papers.

It will confidently tell you how many bears russia has launched into space: https://mindmatters.ai/2023/02/lets-take-the-i-out-of-ai/

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#262

Post by ethbr0 »

sdenton4 wrote: post #77
tdehnel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not possible. Theory comes first. Scientists need a theory first to know which experiments to do. Any interesting experimental results are interesting precisely because they do not conform to the existing theories. Edit: here's a decent writeup to show what I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness

Hope the air's good in the tower... Good science has often proceeded from 'weird' observations, leading to experiments trying to isolate the weirdness. The weird is necessarily outside the zone of existing theory, and requires experimentation to recreate the effect reliably and quantifiably. Once that's done, you can iterate on conjectures and experiments to try to get to the bottom of what's going on. In reality, I…

Comment would have stood on its own, without that first sentence.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#263

Post by RyanAdamas »

For all of the "what will this mean if true" posts; this is a foundational technology that will produce other technologies and advancements we can't yet determine. If it's able to enhance current quantum computer's efficiencies, power, and reliability, by a magnitude, that in and of itself would catapult new technology discoveries in other areas which would likely create a self-reinforcing feedback loop of advancement.

It's not just about the trains or the chips, it's about the problem solving potential this material has by enhancing currently difficult to build and contain technologies.

What if we discover that a room temperature superconductor in a ceramic form is necessary for telepathic communication via prefrontal cortex plates? Sci-fi, but the point is we can't really know what will come of it especially when we're talking about problem solving machines that go far beyond the human brains capacity for problem recognition.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#264

Post by blueprint »

sdenton4 wrote: post #77
tdehnel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not possible. Theory comes first. Scientists need a theory first to know which experiments to do. Any interesting experimental results are interesting precisely because they do not conform to the existing theories. Edit: here's a decent writeup to show what I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness

Hope the air's good in the tower... Good science has often proceeded from 'weird' observations, leading to experiments trying to isolate the weirdness. The weird is necessarily outside the zone of existing theory, and requires experimentation to recreate the effect reliably and quantifiably. Once that's done, you can iterate on conjectures and experiments to try to get to the bottom of what's going on. In reality, I…

how exactly has physics been at an impasse? this trope is so common now. did you hear it from Weinstein? we've had a metric ton of mindblowing theory emerge in the past 30 years. do you even study physics?

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#265

Post by maxbond »

King-Aaron wrote: post #112
peyton wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re PS: What’s gonna convince you?

What do they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is extremely ordinary 'evidence'

> This is extremely ordinary 'evidence'

Claims don't require special evidence whether they are extraordinary or not. "Extraordinary" claims can be proved with the same kind of evidence as other kinds of claims. Relativity was first tested by taking pictures of an eclipse, pretty pedestrian evidence relative to the cosmic scale of it's implications.

What is true is that, the higher the confidence of your prior belief, the less impact new evidence will have. So extraordinary claims simply require more evidence, because our prior is that they aren't true with fairly high confidence.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#266

Post by davidivadavid »

tdehnel wrote: post #63
huijzer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) it takes a undergrad to make and measure a superconductor by a Nobel laureate to explain it. Another example of Taleb’s idea that experimentation comes first and theories second. Universities pretend that it’s the other way around but apart from an Einstein it’s usually not.

Not possible. Theory comes first. Scientists need a theory first to know which experiments to do. Any interesting experimental results are interesting precisely because they do not conform to the existing theories. Edit: here's a decent writeup to show what I mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-ladenness

While correct you're being downvoted because you're equivocating on the term "theory." People are assuming you're talking about a fully baked, documented theory couched in precise language and equations. What you're actually talking about is tacit assumptions / models that are built in observations.

"Theory comes first" is particularly unfortunate wording because it seems to imply the naive point of view that people first come up with a thorough mathematical model of some phenomenon before testing and validating it with experiments. That's obviously not how science has worked throughout history.

Saying "all observations/measurements imply an underlying theory" would have been maybe more accurate.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#267

Post by [deleted] »

__alexs wrote: post #98
sigmoid10 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon is not valuable because it is a good conductor, in fact it is actually more like an insulator in its natural state. However, mixing the right materials into it, it becomes a very good semiconductor . So it can let current flow easily or block it effectively, making it a good basis for transistors. The problem here are the normal (usually copper) wires between transistors that cause heat to build up whenever c…

> The problem here are the normal (usually copper) wires between transistors that cause heat to build up whenever current flows through them. IIRC with the high frequencies of modern processors switching losses tend to be a larger factor than resistive losses. If you can remove the resistive losses that leaves you with a greater heat budget from switching losses which might help drive up frequency even more.

[deleted]

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#268

Post by visarga »

__alexs wrote: post #98
sigmoid10 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon is not valuable because it is a good conductor, in fact it is actually more like an insulator in its natural state. However, mixing the right materials into it, it becomes a very good semiconductor . So it can let current flow easily or block it effectively, making it a good basis for transistors. The problem here are the normal (usually copper) wires between transistors that cause heat to build up whenever c…

> The problem here are the normal (usually copper) wires between transistors that cause heat to build up whenever current flows through them. IIRC with the high frequencies of modern processors switching losses tend to be a larger factor than resistive losses. If you can remove the resistive losses that leaves you with a greater heat budget from switching losses which might help drive up frequency even more.

Dynamic current does not flow freely in superconductors, only direct current. So it would help for power circuits, not for data lanes.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#269

Post by emn13 »

maxbond wrote: post #265
King-Aaron wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is extremely ordinary 'evidence'

> This is extremely ordinary 'evidence' Claims don't require special evidence whether they are extraordinary or not. "Extraordinary" claims can be proved with the same kind of evidence as other kinds of claims. Relativity was first tested by taking pictures of an eclipse, pretty pedestrian evidence relative to the cosmic scale of it's implications. What is true is that, the higher the confidence of your prior belief,…

The point of that quote is of course not that the evidence must have some mythical flavor or whatever - that would be absurd, but rather that if your prior is a strongly held belief that something is not possible and thus the claim to the contrary is extraordinary, then the evidence sufficient to overturn that prior belief must naturally also be extraordinarily convincing.

It's just standard Bayesian reasoning (apologies if I'm misusing the terminology).

Given how much prior research has been done on superconductors, how attractive a target they are for research, and the demonstrated history of fraud in the field - it's not unnatural to retain skepticism concerning this story.

Doesn't mean the story is fraudulent or falsely believed to be fraudulent; it simply means that more evidence is needed to settle this convincingly. I'm sure will get that soon enough - either way.

Re: Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor LK-99 preprint revision 2

#270

Post by mrtksn »

ngc6677 wrote: post #231
mrtksn wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have a global grid of solar power. Since you don't loose energy on transmission and half of the planet is illuminated by the sun at any given time, you can have uninterrupted solar energy 24/7. The fuel is practically unlimited, the only cost would be the initial cost of building it and then only maintenance cost.

great idea! Can't wait you get funding for this project

Many grids are interconnected already and the electricity distribution is already an international business, if the lk-99 becomes available as a final product I don't see why would be hard to built a SC backbone. Not only electricity but international pipelines that move fossil fuels to thousand of kilometres away are already a common thing.
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