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

Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 1001 posts

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#761

Post by Difwif »

n2d4 wrote: post #533
wcerfgba wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, the 99 stands for 1999, so potentially this material has existed for over 20 years and we could have started testing and replication on a much wider scale a decade ago. What benefit have we gained by disseminating this research so slowly?

> What benefit have we gained by disseminating this research so slowly? It's less visible, but at this scale there's a high cost in everyone pausing their research to replicate LK-99. If it turns out to be real that's worth, but if not it could've gone to better use. Think of what we could've done with the time we spent reproducing cold fusion. It's survivorship bias; yes, you would love to see the significant discov…

I'm sorry but this is BS (and I don't mean that as a personal attack, just a repulsion to the idea)

As if researcher must drop everything they're doing and attempt to reproduce every wild claim. It simply doesn't happen because these people are able to work through hypotheticals and form value predictions... Just like they do with any other research resource allocation decision.

No, it's far worse to lock up knowledge behind academic institutional norms and hide and yell "rigor" when anyone is curious to see what's being worked on. People can decide for themselves what is worth pursuing and the OP is likely correct that we're doing damage to our own progress by not disseminating a hypothesis that's being worked on but could use more resources. Furthermore this fear of someone publishing before you in a race to claim the Nobel prize likely doesn't help.

The institutions should formalize and normalize a method for broad open access to research in progress and broader collaboration.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#762

Post by regularfry »

jacquesm wrote: post #688
fnands wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason why room temperature (ambient pressure) superconductors have been one of the holy grails of physics for such a long time: the implications are profound. I used to be a particle physicist, and some of the more complex systems were just those used to cool the superconducting magnets down to cold enough that they become superconducting. If you can do that at ambient temp, you don't have to bother with…

There would be some massive deprecation at the CERN and ITER sites.

You've got me wondering how much cheaper ITER actually gets if you don't need the magnets to be cryogenic.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#763

Post by simias »

someplaceguy wrote: post #141
ChuckMcM wrote: post #129

For those experiencing this type of "black swan, but good" event for the first time, it is helpful to recognize that the human tendency to believe that all future "big events" will be dystopian downers, is statistically unsound. For a while I've kept a list of the things that could be "good" swan events, but to be fair I didn't have "room temperature superconductor on that list" :-) Other things that could happen: 1)…

It would have been more convincing if you had given real past examples rather than speculative future ones :) Although I'm pretty sure there are plenty that many people can think of, so it doesn't really detract much from your point.

It's perhaps not as life-changing as some of the sibling replies but one thing that has really amazed me over the past few decades is how much lighting has progressed.

When I was a kid in the 90's I already enjoyed electricity and electronics and I would play with those low power incandescent lightbulbs powered by 9V batteries. They would generate a lot of heat and very little light, to the point that it wasn't easy to tell if it was on when the sun was bright.

With a modern LED and the same setup you could generate enough light to blind yourself.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#764

Post by pmoriarty »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #671
constantcrying wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are multiple big reasons they didn't publish sooner. It is pretty clear that they were convinced, but had insufficient evidence to convince others. Additionally there had recently been a sensational fraud in their field so journals would have been extremely sceptical. It seems to me they were just in the process of constructing a convincing paper, which included convincing tests and could have been acom…

It's also worth mentioning that room temperature superconductor "discoveries" happen a lot, and have always turned out to be a disappointment. It's been considered to be within the same bermuda triangle of scientific vaporware that demarked by quantum computers performing useful tasks, fusion power generation, that sort of thing. Always just around the corner and dude trust me it totally works in my lab. It's basical…

So how sure are we that this isn't yet another in a long line of disappointments?

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#765

Post by charlieyu1 »

anovikov wrote: post #385
nindalf wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Auctions, sanitary towels, retirement, banking, disposable razor, sewing machine, canned food, interchangeable parts, antibiotics, solar cells, postage stamp, light bulb, pencil, air conditioning, insurance, dwarf wheat, spreadsheet, cold chain, double entry book-keeping, S-bend, infant formula, clocks, public key cryptography, passports, batteries, printing press, video games, GPS, contraceptive pill, shipping conta…

Passports are not a good invention. They are a dystopian evil we grew to take for granted and even see as something that exists for our own benefit. Before WWI there were no passports and no need for them. Those were Good Old Days that are not coming back. It's weird to see some people seeing some kind of benefit in them.

From Hong Kong, I have a mixed feeling for this. UK made everyone of us to apply for a Hong Kong ID since 50 years ago, but when I come to UK it is way worse because UK doesn’t have a National ID while relying on every private entity to verify your identification.

So unless private collection of personal data is completely illegal, I’d rather have a centralised ID system instead

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#766

Post by pmoriarty »

Difwif wrote: post #761
n2d4 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What benefit have we gained by disseminating this research so slowly? It's less visible, but at this scale there's a high cost in everyone pausing their research to replicate LK-99. If it turns out to be real that's worth, but if not it could've gone to better use. Think of what we could've done with the time we spent reproducing cold fusion. It's survivorship bias; yes, you would love to see the significant discov…

I'm sorry but this is BS (and I don't mean that as a personal attack, just a repulsion to the idea) As if researcher must drop everything they're doing and attempt to reproduce every wild claim. It simply doesn't happen because these people are able to work through hypotheticals and form value predictions... Just like they do with any other research resource allocation decision. No, it's far worse to lock up knowledg…

"institutions should formalize and normalize a method for broad open access to research in progress and broader collaboration."

This goes double for government-funded research, which the overwhelming majority of basic science research is.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#767

Post by sillysaurusx »

pmoriarty wrote: post #764
marginalia_nu wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth mentioning that room temperature superconductor "discoveries" happen a lot, and have always turned out to be a disappointment. It's been considered to be within the same bermuda triangle of scientific vaporware that demarked by quantum computers performing useful tasks, fusion power generation, that sort of thing. Always just around the corner and dude trust me it totally works in my lab. It's basical…

So how sure are we that this isn't yet another in a long line of disappointments?

Currently 39% sure. https://manifold.markets/QuantumObserver/will-the-lk99-room-...

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#768

Post by awb »

someplaceguy wrote: post #404
bobmaxup wrote: post #35

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK-99#Replication_attempts This Wikipedia article has a good summary of the replication attempts to date (including this paper).

Reading further below, I'm actually amazed by all the theoretical studies that have already been done from first principles (all apparently supporting the possibility of superconductivity). That's a pretty fast pace for science!

Magnus Carlson said that if you tell him there’s a winning move on a chess board he could find it very quickly, because his focus becomes extremely narrow.

I wonder if something similar is happening here. Since the scope was defined as LK-99, it becomes a narrow query instead of a broad one.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#769

Post by robnado »

ant6n wrote: post #604
cthalupa wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. There's no possible way to have a superconductor be an actual hoverboard out in the broader world - the magnetic field of the earth is just nowhere near strong enough. You can make specialized areas where it would work, though. It's even been done already with LN2 cooled superconductors - https://www.theverge.com/2015/8/4/9091951/lexus-hoverboard-v... SC could help enable nearly lossless transmission over…

The superconducting transmission line doesn’t need big towers, a clear path, a direct path or a shortest path. It’ll be more like a thick pipe, perhaps buried. Much easier it get a right of way, less environmental impact, less paperwork, less time to build.

I don't know if I would want such a strong electromagnet passing through my neighborhood.

Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

#770

Post by ETH_start »

Smoosh wrote: post #280
holtkam2 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Cure for aging 2. AGI exists and ends up being somehow, unexpectedly easy to control 3. Russia / China / North Korea eventually become democratic Some of the “good” black swans at the top of my mind…

I'm unsure if we want people living forever. While disease, illness, and senility are terrible things, as soon as people can live forever we will have eternal dictatorships (or people trying for it) as well as other questions of perpetual inequality. "Death renders all equal".

We will also have eternal opposition activists and leaders. The effects of immortality on politics will fall on everyone equally.
Post reply on HN