Earlier quoted context omitted.
Things also tend to be invented at about the same time at different places. I wonder if there are other people who were this close to invent it but just couldn't get it right.
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…
Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
881–890 of 1001 posts
Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#882Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#883Earlier quoted context omitted.
What personal benefit does this gain someone to publish it so quickly? Is it just social media attention?
There are no prizes for being second in science.
See, for instance, Stigler's Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler%27s_law_of_eponymy (for the concept an example itself)
Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#884Earlier quoted context omitted.
Two independent research groups, one from Japan and one from the US, simultaneously published their discovery of the NdFeB magnet in the same issue of the same journal.
I don't know this particular story, but — FWIW — it's common for different teams working in the same field to be aware of each other's manuscripts and impending submissions. When two teams are about to submit papers with the same discovery, they'll often work with an editor to put it in the same journal issue. By coordinating a simultaneous publication they can get extra publicity for the discovery, both get the firs…
Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#885Earlier 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…
Completely unrelated, but how does one un-become a particle physicist?
Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#886Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#887Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the current fabrication process, they're only getting a chunk with LK-99 particles sprinkled in. Since nobody yet knows how to fabricate a pure chunk of LK-99, it'll be hard to measure the true resistance of LK-99.
I believe that with the synthesis method proposed by the Korean team, i.e. by the chemical reaction between a certain kind of lead sulfate with copper phosphide, the chances of progress are slim. The Korean team appears to have been stuck for several years by the lack of reproducibility of this synthesis method. While it was a great discovery that has shown that this material must have some very interesting propertie…
Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#888Earlier quoted context omitted.
With the current fabrication process, they're only getting a chunk with LK-99 particles sprinkled in. Since nobody yet knows how to fabricate a pure chunk of LK-99, it'll be hard to measure the true resistance of LK-99.
>Most likely, the material LK99 as reported in [1-3] is a heterophase structure, with co-existent non-superconducting constituents. This may yield superconducting droplets surrounded by nonsuperconducting material... https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.01723 >In fact, I find that Cu on this Pb(2) is 1.08 eV more energetically favorable than Cu on the Pb(1) site, suggesting possible difficulties in robustly obtaining Cu substi…
There is a good classic primer on FT-ICR, mostly focused on analysis (mass spectrometry) but also mentioning activation energies for reactions and measurement of kinetics etc.
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/chemistry/research/oconnor/oco...
If you dunk a bunch of chemicals (for simplicity think wet chemistry) in a vial, all reactions and side reactions are simultaneously occuring, so one has little control over what happens on an atomic scale.
FT-ICR can be used to observe the state AND to manipulate the state. Its like having a compact particle collider, but instead of the high (TeV) energy in CERN etc. its just chemical energy levels.
It happens in high vacuum, so low densities of species, hence not amenable to mass production.
But the instrument is both eyes and hands: one can identify the frequencies corresponding to each ionized molecule, and selectively energize or de-energize specific species to encourage or prevent main and competing reactions, by pumping or damping specific frequencies.
One may build up a molecule in elementary steps and eject finished molecules. Those steps can occur at the same time in the same vessel. Its like having a miniature digitally controlled chemical plant, without having to redo all the pipework if you decide to use a different pathway here or there.
Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#889Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, it could use more of the easy details, however, I don't have much issue with 10^-2 Pa, since standard atmospheric pressure is 101,325 Pa, so 0.1 Pa (10^-2 Pa, or 1.45x10^-6 psi) is definitely understood as a vacuum, but you're correct, why not just add "vacuum" for thoroughness. I know mercury gauges use to have a 0 to 30 scale sometimes (not 0 to -30), and that was confusing!
10^-2 is 0.01
Re: Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99
#890So what the heck has happened with LK-99 really? (Disclaimer: I'm no physicist nor chemist, but I have co-written a report on three LK-99 papers [1] and am tracking the Twitter discussion as much as I can. I also got some help from knowledgable friends---much thanks for proof-reading.) It turned out that LK folks were not talking about some stupid shit. Specifically they were one of the last believers of long-forgott…
This happens to lots of famous scientists/engineers (Sergey Korolev, Vladimir Vernadsky, ...). We can do a bit better.