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

arxiv.org

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

#861

Post by marcosdumay »

rvcdbn wrote: post #849
marcosdumay wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to add on the "nonsense" line. Using the antropic principle to talk about the future is completely absurd. There is a huge amount of what I think in unawarded debate about applying it to the past (IMO, it's very clear where it should be used), but applying it to the future is completely against any kind of logic.

Why? If the argument works at this point in time when reflecting on our history what makes it stop working for future observers who reflect on their histories? It can certainly lead you to some pretty wacky-sounding conclusions (looking at you Frank Tipler) but I can’t see why it’s obviously wrong for future observers to deploy it in just the same was as we do.

No, it's pure bullshit.

You can't apply conditional probabilities to unbias some result if you don't know if the condition holds or not.

You can invent some fiction where some future people apply it. You just can't pretend that there is any realism on it.

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

#862

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

fwipsy wrote: post #778
MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #713

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. But hasn't it been 24 years since they discovered LK-99? Or am I missing something? If that's true wouldn't it be a tragic shame that i…

It was originally discovered in 1999 but was shelved for over a decade due to insufficient funding. As I understand it, they only received funding in 2018 and became more confident in their discovery after that. Here is some (speculative?) backstory: https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1684385895565365248 It is a tragic shame in hindsight, but no doubt there are many earth-shattering discoveries lying within reach, if…

Thanks for the link. Assuming it's accurate it sounds like the 24-year delay was just a bit of misfortune.

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

#863

Post by smolder »

lottin wrote: post #313
ChicagoDave wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Anti-gravity 2. Light year capable transport 3. Inertia dampers 4. Mass scale carbon capture technology 5. Robots to prepare space for habitation 6. World recognition to manage resources globally

> 6. World recognition to manage resources globally Do you mean communism?

Communism is one model of government among many. Do YOU think that intelligent management of global resources requires communism? Is the United nations a commune because the member countries cooperate in some way? Isn't there an area between "independent actors acting selfishly" and "communism"?

I don't think they were implying communism. Which is good, because IME people on this forum can't have honest discussion or apply critical thinking in the vicinity of the subject. They start rhetoric-dumping and posturing and repeating tired arguments as if preventing thoughts about communism is their ticket to heaven. Sprinkle in a few posts positive-to-neutral on Marx to fuel the fire, and that's the recipe.

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

#864

Post by kevstev »

jacquesm wrote: post #785
kevstev wrote: post #760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year I read The Double Helix and The Code Breaker within a few months of each other, and what really stood out to me is that while we celebrate the first person who discovers something, in reality there were several teams all racing to the finish line, and were sometimes days or only even hours behind in presenting their findings. Yet only one team gets the accolades and their names in textbooks, the others are…

It's even more stark when you come to realize how big the pyramid is just under a new scientific breakthrough. But there are also examples of people that stayed the course against common wisdom (and sometimes while being derided) who eventually succeeded in what they were doing. This is to me the kind of science that is most deserving of prizes, to encourage others to keep looking even when the answers are far from o…

I feel that way about string theory. I am merely an airmchair physicist, though I did have a physics minor in college, but it just feels... wrong. Ever more layers of complexity to explain away holes, and no real predictive power. But at least as of ~10-15 (and maybe still today, I have lost touch with that world) years ago, saying this in any serious setting would not make you any friends, nor get you any funding. It feels to me that we have likely squandered decades of brain power going down that hole.

I hope there are still those toiling away doing unpopular work, that can make a breakthrough....

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

#865

Post by blackmesaind »

digbybk wrote: post #841
anigbrowl wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conventional conductors have resistance, so when you run electrical current through them they heat up; this is why laptops and desktops have fans to cool the chips, why phones get hot and so on. Superconductors transmit energy without resistance, so the heating problem goes away and the energy costs of running the device go way, way down. Basically you can pump more through smaller wires without worrying about them m…

> The raw materials are fairly cheap, and the production involves heating it to hundreds of degrees centigrade for 24-48 hours Can you also ELI5 why this seemed like such a hard problem to solve up until now? Was it something hiding in plain site?

There's no general analytical method to solve for a material with specific properties, including superconductivity. The properties of materials are governed by the quantum mechanical behavior of electrons and their interactions with the crystal lattice. These interactions are typically described by the laws of solid-state physics, which involve solving complex quantum mechanical equations for the electrons in a crystalline structure.

For simple systems, such as some low-temperature superconductors and idealized models, researchers can sometimes make analytical approximations or derive simplified equations that describe the behavior of the material. But for most materials, the equations are too complex to solve analytically, and researchers rely on numerical methods, computational simulations, and empirical data to understand and predict material properties.

It's similar to the reason we can't find easy analytical solutions to other complex systems (like models trained via Machine Learning), there are just too many complex factors and interactions to take into account.

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

#866

Post by fouc »

zhynn wrote: post #847
dmix wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What personal benefit does this gain someone to publish it so quickly? Is it just social media attention?

Some background on the drama (and the rush to publish): https://www.reddit.com/r/redscarepod/comments/15egs7i/avg_ru... and https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1685294623449874432 The papers were totally rushed.

8teAPi admitted they were essentially writing fiction generated from some of the known facts

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

#867

Post by jacquesm »

bartislartfast wrote: post #626
jacquesm wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think every technology is double edged, from the humble hammer all the way to atomic energy, you can always apply tools for good and for bad.

double edged hammer is certainly a useful tool but I prefer the one with the thing on the back for nails

That's called a double axe.

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

#868

Post by jacquesm »

senttoschool wrote: post #820
jacquesm wrote: post #802

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, good points though the money angle is debatable. The USA and Europe are 'on average' also more pro-science than the rest of the world, but I think the East has the edge in education and comes across as more focused on progress. Probably this is underpinned in part because they have a ton of very hard problems that need solving and in the 'rich West' people are much less driven because their lives and the lives o…

One difference I’ve found living in the West and China is that being academically successful often gets you made fun of in the US but adored in China. There’s quite a lot of anti-intellectualism in the US. Therefore, there’s an equal amount of anti-science. Meanwhile, every Chinese I’ve ever met is pro-education and thinks highly of science.

I call that the cult of stupidity. It is unfortunately very common where I live.

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

#869

Post by SergeAx »

jjallen wrote: post #432

One somewhat ironic fact of this story is that the rogue former employee perhaps deserves some credit for bringing this thing out into the world. They had been working on this for quite a long time themselves, rightfully so. But now the whole world is working on it and exploring other methods and combinations of materials I would assume (to improve upon the original design and avoid any patents). How long would they…

No, they are not. The only consequence of that action was a worldwide mess of people trying to reproduce the experiment or disavow it. Original authors needed a bit more time to polish their discovery, write solid paper with undeniable proofs and maybe even prepare handout samples.

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

#870

Post by pmontra »

Roritharr wrote: post #593

The Varda Team just posted a really high-resolution video of the diamagnetism: https://twitter.com/andrewmccalip/status/1687405505604734978

Noob question: if whatever is happening is strong enough to raise one of the ends of the sample, why doesn't raise both? After all gravitation is many order of magnitudes weaker than electromagnetism. Did they calibrate the setup to closely match the gravitational force on the sample? Why not push a little more and make it fly up the the cap of the container?
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