Ask HN: Why is LK-99 public?

Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that a break through technology is shared with the rest of the world immediatly. Let's assume that it is real. I can't help but wonder why a so significant discovery is published so soon. Wouldn't the laboratory or even the state in which this discovery was made want to keep it secret, to have this edge over its concurrents ? Akin TMSC for exemple. Isn't there significant military applications possibles ? With that in mind, would it be possible that : 1/ that discovery is not new, and better superconductor already exist somewhere ? 2/ the rushed publication would be like a leak, to prevent exactly that ?

99 in the name comes from the year it was discovered. However, it was only researched more thoroughly during the last few years. It was patented a few years ago.

But yes, there was a leak in the form of the first whitepaper published by Kwon who was a former member of the group—so perhaps had it not been for that release then they would still keep trying to enchance the process more before releasing.

Like for a decade ;).

It appears one of the discoverers feared he wouldn't be properly credited, and rushed the publication. See https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/15b27wn/the_st...

Perhaps his fears were founded. A few hours later in fact his name was suppressed in a second version of the paper.

I'm just a bystander with no understanding of the specifics, but there are lots of general reasons why it might happen this way:

1. The discovery was in a university research context, where publishing results is normal practice.

2. Maybe publication was mandated by the funding source.

3. Maybe it's not yet certain that it's a breakthrough and they want more eyes on it to help validate.

4. Maybe they want to be publicly acknowledged as the discoverers, for future patent/prize/fame purposes.

5. Maybe it's so early stage, or with so many practical limitations, that it is not yet ready to be industrialized.

6. Maybe the recipe is so simple that there's no realistic way to contain knowledge of it.

7. Maybe it's a revolutionary technology that will save the world and the best outcome for everybody, including the researchers, is to get it into as many hands as possible.

No need to invoke conspiracy.

(Edit - the question is now different so my comment is stale)

My understanding is power is expended when current flows through a metal with resistance, and that loss is in the form of heat. The lower the resistance, the lower the loss and therefore lower the heat