Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 389 posts

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#331

Post by _jal »

junon wrote: post #296
cthalupa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm actually surprised by the sheer lack of people commenting in the more-or-less-perma-LK-99 threads who show skepticism of the results. There's plenty of people that are skeptical and making it a point to tell everyone they are skeptical. There's plenty of people that are skeptical that are still engaging on the possibility of it being real because it is interesting to do so. There are plenty of people discussing…

This. The idea that science can't also be fun seems to be the mindset of a lot of people criticizing others for participating more as eager spectators. Nothing wrong with that. Let people enjoy things. If LK-99 turns out to be nothing then we got some entertainment out of it and a lot of people learned about superconductors (and science in general) in the process. How's that not a win in and of itself?

Just to underline this, after years of plague, war and uncertainty, I think this is a great, positive thing, whatever happens.

I'm annoyed with someone I was talking to about this, who either can't or won't stop ranting about past high-profile failures.

Yes, we all know. Old folks like me remember the cold fusion scam first hand. Your knowing cynicism displays deep scientific wisdom. Happy?

Great, now let's watch the fucking show, this is neat, even if it doesn't work out.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#332

Post by [deleted] »

jpambrun wrote: post #262
daemontus wrote: post #259

I see a lot of "This must be real, why would labs publish this if they don't think it's real, they have nothing to gain." sentiment on HN lately. Or "Researcher's career would be ruined if they falsely claim to replicate." , and so on. I also want to believe! But I should add a bit of skepticism to the hype :) - "this could ruin their career": Depends. If they posted completely fake numbers or intentionally fake vide…

A contaminated sample that materially change the composition but still yield a superconductor would be a novel finding. An error in manipulation leading to an external communication on something this high profile is sure to affect your career. It's like a biologist claiming to have found evidence extraterrestrial life and having to retract. I think I would consider hara-kiri..

[deleted]

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#333

Post by greenthrow »

_jal wrote: post #331
junon wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The idea that science can't also be fun seems to be the mindset of a lot of people criticizing others for participating more as eager spectators. Nothing wrong with that. Let people enjoy things. If LK-99 turns out to be nothing then we got some entertainment out of it and a lot of people learned about superconductors (and science in general) in the process. How's that not a win in and of itself?

Just to underline this, after years of plague, war and uncertainty, I think this is a great, positive thing, whatever happens. I'm annoyed with someone I was talking to about this, who either can't or won't stop ranting about past high-profile failures. Yes, we all know. Old folks like me remember the cold fusion scam first hand. Your knowing cynicism displays deep scientific wisdom. Happy? Great, now let's watch the…

It's one thing to engage suspension of disbelief when watching a movie. It's another to engage it when discussing actual scientific papers.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#334

Post by mads_ravn »

api wrote: post #314
doingtheiroming wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s plenty of skepticism. It’s the zero-cost position here. But there are good and bad skeptical positions. The good one involves people attempting to replicate and publishing results whether positive, negative or somewhere in between. The bad one consists of sitting in forums and threads being, “the voice of reason”. If there’s a real problem, it’s that we have still not made publication of negative results suff…

> The bad one consists of sitting in forums and threads being, “the voice of reason”. I refer to these folks as the "boring universe brigade." The heuristic seems to be that if it's in any way exciting it's probably bullshit. It's a blind overreaction to memetically-optimized pseudoscience.

Isn’t it just a reasonable application of the “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”?

And I say this as someone really hoping that this is true, since I assume this would be great news for renewable energy (and we really need great news on that front)

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#335

Post by scarmig »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #326
api wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bad one consists of sitting in forums and threads being, “the voice of reason”. I refer to these folks as the "boring universe brigade." The heuristic seems to be that if it's in any way exciting it's probably bullshit. It's a blind overreaction to memetically-optimized pseudoscience.

Well, that position is right 99.9% of the time.

pg: "Being too cynical will cause you to miss out on the most important phase changes."

Defaulting to "no" might get you the right answer the majority of the time, but it also makes you miss the times that "yes" is correct. And correct things that are a radical departure from the status quo are probably the most important and useful to get right.

Skepticism is good (it's still ambiguous whether LK-99 is anything at all), but pessimistic cynicism is not the same thing.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#336

Post by capableweb »

_jal wrote: post #331
junon wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The idea that science can't also be fun seems to be the mindset of a lot of people criticizing others for participating more as eager spectators. Nothing wrong with that. Let people enjoy things. If LK-99 turns out to be nothing then we got some entertainment out of it and a lot of people learned about superconductors (and science in general) in the process. How's that not a win in and of itself?

Just to underline this, after years of plague, war and uncertainty, I think this is a great, positive thing, whatever happens. I'm annoyed with someone I was talking to about this, who either can't or won't stop ranting about past high-profile failures. Yes, we all know. Old folks like me remember the cold fusion scam first hand. Your knowing cynicism displays deep scientific wisdom. Happy? Great, now let's watch the…

I'm guessing some people feel like the time spent discussing/keeping up to date would be a waste of time if it turns out it isn't true.

Which I guess is fine, the friction comes from when those people think others shouldn't "risk" wasting their time, as they start wanting to impose their own will upon others. But this happens all the time with humans so...

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#337

Post by api »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #326
api wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The bad one consists of sitting in forums and threads being, “the voice of reason”. I refer to these folks as the "boring universe brigade." The heuristic seems to be that if it's in any way exciting it's probably bullshit. It's a blind overreaction to memetically-optimized pseudoscience.

Well, that position is right 99.9% of the time.

By that logic a rock is right 99.9% of the time. I just asked one whether LK-99 will replicate and it said nothing.

Reasonable skepticism is always warranted. I think this thread is talking about reflexive cynicism and instantaneous dismissal.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#338

Post by scarmig »

eric_cc wrote: post #288
whimsicalism wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you work in this field, but you are putting way too much faith in what has been reported so far People are way, way overconfident. Most people in the field would not be willing to put it at >50% odds at this point.

> Most people in the field would not be willing to put it at >50% odds at this point. Do you have a source for this claim? It sounds like you just made it up.

There's not going to be a poll on it or anything.

But, for what it's worth, as both an LK-99 optimist and as someone who has worked in the field and who still talks to people in it, most people in it seem to put the chances well below 50%.

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#339

Post by wwarner »

Here's Brian Keating interviewing Jorge Hirsch from UC San Diego and Inna Vishik of UC Davis [0]. Prof Hirsch was/is a leading critic of the U Rochester papers, but thinks that LK-99 could work.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQnDatnAWP4

Re: Observation of zero resistance above 100 K in Pb₁₀₋ₓCuₓ(PO₄)₆O

#340

Post by awb »

crakenzak wrote: post #3

So exciting! Just FYI, the wikipedia page for LK-99 has a very useful tracking grid of replication attempts with sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK-99

The Response and Replication sections on Wikipedia seem far more skeptical and pessimistic about LK-99 than the average HN comment or news article.
Post reply on HN