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Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

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Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#61

Post by XorNot »

p-e-w wrote: post #26
Azrael3000 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently a new paper is supposed to come out from the original authors about the production method [0]. So it really is unclear whether everybody generates the same material. It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. [0] https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-tempe...

> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Indeed. It's also a shame that they chose to use language like: "We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind." When you make grandiose boasts like these, you better be fucking certain you are correct.

When you're claiming you have a room temperature superconductor, it would be more suspicious if you weren't claiming that. Because if LK99 works, then that's exactly what it is. It'll be material of the century.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#62

Post by WillAdams »

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.

Most likely the peer review process will include replication.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#63

Post by sbierwagen »

dekhn wrote: post #36
carabiner wrote: post #32

Research out of Berkeley, 1 Aug 2023: theoretical analysis suggests high-Tc superconductors from apatite possible, points to synthesis challenges. > Finally, the calculations presented here suggest that Cu substitution on the appropriate (Pb(1)) site displays many key characteristics for high-TC superconductivity, namely a particularly flat isolated d-manifold, and the potential presence of fluctuating magnetism, cha…

Some days I wish I could just run DFT on everything and have it spit out the ones with "interesting" results and then patent those. Unfortunately, this is not feasible (computationally) nor likely to produce very many true positives. I wonder if you could troll theorists into doing simulations of just about any substance by publishing convincing-looking papers in arxiv. Scratch that: we know it's possible.

Brute forcing the space of all chemicals isn't practical, so just do what humans do, generate plausible candidates with a neural net and then check with DFT.

The patent system in its current form isn't going to survive the next few decades, on this I agree. First step is probably going to be chopping down the patent length from its current 15 year term.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#64

Post by [deleted] »

mrandish wrote: post #25
AYBABTME wrote: post #7

> In addition, when a pressed Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O pellet is located on top of a commercial Nd2Fe14B magnet at room temperature, no repulsion could be felt and no magnetic levitation was observed either. Unless we assume the original paper's authors were straight up lying, it sounds like this paper's author didn't end up with exactly the same material?

The original authors have apparently said they are only able to successfully produce the material in around 1 in 10 attempts and they don't yet know why. Also, replicators have reported that the information in the papers and the patent aren't entirely clear on some potentially significant implementation details. Unfortunately, real science makes for a pretty lousy spectator sport :-). Given the context of the release…

[deleted]

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#65

Post by peyton »

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.

I guess don’t hate the player. They’ve got a floating rock. What would materially affect conclusions?

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#66

Post by TaylorAlexander »

carabiner wrote: post #27
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that fiction? I saw someone mention that the Russian anime girl scientist was fiction.

@8teAPi = Random guy writing Sorkinesque fanfiction about this whole saga. @iris_IGB = Random Russian anime girl scientist who synth'd in her apartment kitchen.

Ooh okay thanks. I learned about iris from @8teAPi so I wasn’t sure if both were fake or what.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#67

Post by p-e-w »

XorNot wrote: post #61
p-e-w wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Indeed. It's also a shame that they chose to use language like: "We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind." When you make grandiose boasts like these, you better be fucking certain you are correct.

When you're claiming you have a room temperature superconductor, it would be more suspicious if you weren't claiming that. Because if LK99 works, then that's exactly what it is. It'll be material of the century.

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 announced his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in a lecture modestly called "Modular Forms, Elliptic Curves and Galois Representations" – not "The Historic Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, with Endless Implications for the Future of Mathematics".

This isn't how science is typically done.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#68

Post by p-e-w »

OJFord wrote: post #57
p-e-w wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Indeed. It's also a shame that they chose to use language like: "We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind." When you make grandiose boasts like these, you better be fucking certain you are correct.

I think a huge part of that is translation: imagine what you might sound like if you wrote a press release for or tried to explain to a layman some project you're involved in, and then had it translated to Korean. Some benign description of why room temp atmospheric pressure superconductors are interesting becomes 'a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind'.

> imagine what you might sound like if you wrote a press release for or tried to explain to a layman some project you're involved in, and then had it translated to Korean.

My understanding is that this was supposed to be a (draft of a) research paper, not a "press release". The article certainly doesn't read like laymen are the intended audience.

> Some benign description of why room temp atmospheric pressure superconductors are interesting becomes 'a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind'.

Although I don't speak Korean, I strongly doubt that.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#69

Post by supriyo-biswas »

bestcoder69 wrote: post #10
danbruc wrote: post #9

Maybe not yet the final nail in the coffin but I would no longer bet much on a successful replication. Which leaves me wondering how we got the initial papers. Does fraud make any sense, how could you possibly benefit from something like this? And if I would think that I might have produced a room temperature superconductor due to experimental errors, I would double and tripple check what I did. Assuming there is tim…

Could be a skill issue on the part of the replicators? The russian anime girl scientist had to make a bunch of modifications (and was cursing the orig authors) before she could make her rocks float.

Honestly I found their account dubious, it’s difficult to believe that a person with a background in molecular biology to have synthesized it especially given that other groups have failed to do so. There are also no affiliations mentioned on their profile.

Re: Semiconducting Transport in LK99 reproduction attempt

#70

Post by lovich »

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.

Why would Nature have published the production method of a random material if they didn't have experimental evidence of novel behavior?
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