Many Physicists 'Skeptical' of Spectacular Superconductor Claims (science.org) 85
"This week, social media has been aflutter over a claim for a new superconductor that works not only well above room temperatures, but also at ambient pressure," writes Science magazine.
If true, the discovery would be one of the biggest ever in condensed matter physics and could usher in all sorts of technological marvels, such as levitating vehicles and perfectly efficient electrical grids. However, the two related papers, posted to the arXiv preprint server by Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim of South Korea's Quantum Energy Research Centre and colleagues on 22 July, are short on detail and have left many physicists skeptical... "They come off as real amateurs," says Michael Norman, a theorist at Argonne National Laboratory. "They don't know much about superconductivity and the way they've presented some of the data is fishy." On the other hand, he says, researchers at Argonne and elsewhere are already trying to replicate the experiment. "People here are taking it seriously and trying to grow this stuff." Nadya Mason, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign says, "I appreciate that the authors took appropriate data and were clear about their fabrication techniques." Still, she cautions, "The data seems a bit sloppy...."
What are the reasons for skepticism? There are several, Norman says. First, the undoped material, lead apatite, isn't a metal but rather a nonconducting mineral. And that's an unpromising starting point for making a superconductor. What's more, lead and copper atoms have similar electronic structures, so substituting copper atoms for some of the lead atoms shouldn't greatly affect the electrical properties of the material, Norman says. "You have a rock, and you should still end up with a rock." On top of that, lead atoms are very heavy, which should suppress the vibrations and make it harder for electrons to pair, Norman explains.
The papers don't provide a solid explanation of the physics at play. But the researchers speculate that within their material, the doping slightly distorts long, naturally occurring chains of lead atoms... [Mason] notes that Lee and Kim also suggest that a kind of undulation of charge might exist in the chains and that similar charge patterns have been seen in high-temperature superconductors. "Maybe this material really just hits the sweet spot of a strongly interacting unconventional superconductor," she says.
The big question will be whether anybody can reproduce the observations...
Thanks to Slashdot reader sciencehabit for sharing the article.
What are the reasons for skepticism? There are several, Norman says. First, the undoped material, lead apatite, isn't a metal but rather a nonconducting mineral. And that's an unpromising starting point for making a superconductor. What's more, lead and copper atoms have similar electronic structures, so substituting copper atoms for some of the lead atoms shouldn't greatly affect the electrical properties of the material, Norman says. "You have a rock, and you should still end up with a rock." On top of that, lead atoms are very heavy, which should suppress the vibrations and make it harder for electrons to pair, Norman explains.
The papers don't provide a solid explanation of the physics at play. But the researchers speculate that within their material, the doping slightly distorts long, naturally occurring chains of lead atoms... [Mason] notes that Lee and Kim also suggest that a kind of undulation of charge might exist in the chains and that similar charge patterns have been seen in high-temperature superconductors. "Maybe this material really just hits the sweet spot of a strongly interacting unconventional superconductor," she says.
The big question will be whether anybody can reproduce the observations...
Thanks to Slashdot reader sciencehabit for sharing the article.
Re: Ductility (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Ductility (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, until the extraordinary evidence arrives, of course itâ(TM)s horse muck. The interesting thing for me is that it isnâ(TM)t hard to make the stuff. Usually if a paper is faked, the authors will make a convoluted process be needed to discourage people from attempting to replicate. Either way, thanks to that easy method of production, shouldnâ(TM)t be long until we know.
Re: Ductility (Score:2)
Why wouldn't they hold on to it, use it for themselves, then release it via subscription in a few years, like ChatGPT? Who cares about a measly Nobel Prize when you can make $billions by keeping it private intellectual property?
Re: Ductility (Score:3)
By the sounds of it, because it would be easy for other people to reverse engineer and manufacture for competitors. This way they get to (and have) patent it.
Re: Ductility (Score:4, Insightful)
Was Berners-Lee fucking stupid not to have patented the internet protocols? Or are there more important motivations than greed, despite capitalist propaganda?
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No, because he had enough foresight to see that unencumbered protocols have an advantage in that they get adopted pretty quickly, and for any tech that involved interoperability, it is the single most important driver of overall popularity.
What encumbered network protocols are left? IPX? AppleTalk? NetBIOS?
Both garbage.
We should, however, be thankful that he was that prescient and that the RFC process drove all internet protocol development long term, and not Novell, Apple, or Microsoft.
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What encumbered network protocols are left? IPX? AppleTalk? NetBIOS?
Not AppleTalk. Apple dropped support for the DDP packet protocol way back in Snow Leopard (2009), though they still supported AppleShare/AFP over IP up through Catalina (2019).
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If a room-temperature standard-pressure semiconductor is actually real and *easy to make* (as claimed) then I do not begrudge the people who created it a patent, as long as they're willing to license the patent to multiple different manufacturers so that
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Perhaps because: they are scientists?
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The patent system discourages this by only protecting your invention if you patent it. If you do not patent it, if your "secret" leaks (or is "stolen"), anyone can use it.
If you patent it, you get a state enforced monopoly, but you have to publicly publish everything you wish to have protected.
Do you really not know how any of this works?
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Most people think of technology like on Star Trek. Mystery tech is mysterious and remains so. No way anybody could run a chunk of this stuff through a mass spectrometer and figure out what it is. Never mind getting the replicator to reproduce it.
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Re: Ductility (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, until the extraordinary evidence arrives, of course itâ(TM)s horse muck.
Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that it exists in a state of both horse muck and not horse muck until said evidence arrives? Only then does the wave function collapse and you know if you have a box full of horse muck... or not.
Re: Ductility (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ductility (Score:5, Interesting)
Not if it can be deposited as a thin film on a flexible substrate: https://interestingengineering... [interestin...eering.com]
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Problem being, that the whole "I totally invented room temperature and pressure super conductors" has been a meme in physics for several decades now.
It's always either someone lying about what they did or what they found, or being so stupid that they didn't realize their mistake that is fairly obvious once someone with a clue looks at the research and attempts to replicate it.
This is the exact kind of "race to the bottom" part of physics where quackery and stupidity has been running rampant for a while. Tho
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Any statement that starts with "any statement" is wrong.
Re: Well... (Score:2)
So does everything rest on the idea that research is a zero-sum game and if your research isn't funded it's like just a law of economics that an obviously undeserving someone else is taking YOUR money?
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I don't know what "everything" means in this context. But yes, funding is limited, and figuring out funding is a zero sum game. The amount of money at the end after everything has been divided is zero. That's the point of "budgeting".
How have you survived so far if you don't even understand how budgeting works? How do you handle household expenses?
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"Governments and economies are like household budgets."
Sure they are. Especially if that household has a printing press in the basement....
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Governments don't decide specifics of funding research that is publicly funded. Funding committees do. They're given a budget to work with by the government, and unlike the government, they don't have a right to print any additional money beyond what they're given.
Re: Well... (Score:2)
So is science really just a political allocation of scarce resource dollars, where relationships matter more than (noisy) data, just another market that remains irrational longer than you can stay solvent?
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Wait until drugs wear off, then re-read the post.
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Pretty much, yes. Grant review doesn't even try to be unbiased by who's applying. There's almost always a big chunk of the score that is explicitly allocated to an assessment of who's on the grant.
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How do you handle household expenses?
Most people do not need to "handle household expenses".
They are more or less the same every month, week, sometimes even a day.
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Yes, just like wind in Germany. More or less the same. Spikes and lows don't matter, nor do major events. Energiewende banzai. Magical thinking at its finest. Never buy a house or a car, or anything really. It will destroy you financially.
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Many Americans, or many /.-ers not sure, actually do think that way.
Re: Well... (Score:2)
What it does is improves models of when materials will or wonâ(TM)t superconduct, and as a result improves our ability to predict and develop others.
Re: Well... (Score:2)
Improve, or disprove?
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Is that Albert Michelson calling, asking for his 1894 "end of physics" prediction back?
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Disagree with this. Newtonian physics once described the limits of the universe, which in turn gave way to quantum mechanics which gives a better, but still limited understanding. We still don't know precisely how gravity works and a ton of other things.
As in most things, we make incremental advances up til our understanding of a process changes. Then boom! (sometimes literally)
Yes, we've grabbed a lot of the low-hanging fruit, But I suspect there's a pretty big tree out there.
Any samples avaiable to other labs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Many of the concerns by other researchers that this is fake could instantly be alleviated by the original researchers providing samples for testing by other labs.
Re:Any samples avaiable to other labs? (Score:5, Informative)
> Many of the concerns by other researchers that this is fake could instantly be alleviated by the original researchers providing samples for testing by other labs.
They say they've provided complete and thorough instructions on how to make it. Decent lab people are saying it's a 2-3 day grow, so assuming setup time we'll have confirmation or refutation in 2-3 weeks.
They have a patent filed so they're not truly worried about everybody just "stealing" it.
That's the right way if you believe the patent system can still be held generating the promises of its original intent.
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They say they've provided complete and thorough instructions on how to make it
Providing material for other labs to test is the next logical step that requires minimal effort by other labs, is quick, and would add more weight to their quite extraordinary claims.
While it is important to provide replicable instructions on how to make it, that still leaves the possibility that others may not follow the instructions or do things in a slightly different way that would result in a slightly different material, and also imposes much higher costs in terms of lab time and setup, even if the mat
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Providing material for other labs to test is the next logical step that requires minimal effort by other labs, is quick, and would add more weight to their quite extraordinary claims.
It isn't just the material in question, there are other aspects such as what GP brought up, the materials chosen to dope with this ceramic that alter its properties.
When the copper coated with LK-99 is questioned due to the copper substrate, a sample isn't helpful.
We all have plain old copper already, and already have shown copper without LK-99 shows the same effects in their video.
We need to dope other materials with LK-99 to know if the LK-99 is actually changing the properties of those other materials.
Th
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Time to grow a sample will be the same, but there won't be any time needed to build the apparatus or to obtain the material needed.
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Patent has supposedly been filed, so you can expect proper peer review once time needed to replicate it according to instructions is behind us.
Re: Any samples avaiable to other labs? (Score:2)
If they have it, one wonders why they should even care what slashdot pundits and Nobel Prize Committee cheapskates think?
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Reputation matters. Networking with other people matters. While former are irrelevant, latter do matter for both, at least in short to medium term.
Re: Any samples avaiable to other labs? (Score:2)
So if they don't submit to society, would their discovery be dismissed without even needing testing, as geologists dismissed Wegener's continental drift evidence without needing to test it further?
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There are plenty of useful patents that go nowhere for a long time, until someone reputable notices them and decides to do something with them.
The 'superconducting' has other explenations... (Score:5, Interesting)
Their 'findings' and 'proof' videos can be explained by 'normal' magnetic effects https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
In addition their only video they show of the typical levitating lump of material seems to have been supercooled as you can see water vapour condensation/clouds.
That is all.
Re:The 'superconducting' has other explenations... (Score:4)
Lead is naturally diamagnetic, but even if all they did is find a way to increase diamagnetism that too could be useful. If they can boost the diamagnetism, by for example 1000x, of known strongly diamagnetic materials like pyrolytic graphite or bismuth that could enable maglevs, hovering road vehicles, and maybe fusion reactors.
Who do we know that's trying? (Score:3, Informative)
Thus far, I only know found one person online that's trying to replicate this experiment live-streaming on Twitch. He's doing all the prep work and is expecting the PbSO4 to arrive on Monday after which it will take about a day to get the result. So he's predicting to have some results by Tuesday or Wednesday, See here on Twitter what he's done so far: https://twitter.com/andrewmcca... [twitter.com] Also Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/andrewmc... [twitch.tv]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It seems legit though.
Re: (Score:2)
Story of every fake livestream pretending to be real to date. And there have been untold millions of fake livestreams pretending to be doing something real. This includes everything from fake prank streams to twitch thots flashing their sex organs to the camera "totally by accident".
Re: Who do we know that's trying? (Score:3)
Atypical method of livestream, but that's exactly how science is supposed to work.
Publish your findings and way to reproduce the effect. Other people follow it and attempt to reproduce the effect. If it works, get congratulations on the advancement, your Nobel Prize is in the mail. If it doesn't work or others see mixed results, take the reputation hit, figure it out and publish again.
The oddity with their patents already being filed is that to be valid, a patent must be enough to replicate it. The proces
Re: (Score:1)
Patents do not require "others" to replicate it. And depending on country, a patented apparatus, does not even need to work.
Re: Who do we know that's trying? (Score:2)
Subtle strawman there, changing from what I wrote.
A patent containing enough to replicate it is not the same as actually requiring anybody to replicate it. The first is a requirement held by most nations and WIPO, the second is not.
Regardless, it is irrelevant to the point. It is exactly the scientific method: either people will validate the results and the breakthrough validated, or it will not be validated by others leaving their reputation broken. Either it works as a superconductor as described or it
Re: (Score:2)
Straw-man? That sounds like an insult.
There is no patent law that requires a paten application to be replicated before hand.
That would be utterly against: what patents are aiming for.
Re: Who do we know that's trying? (Score:2)
Correct, and I never said there was. Only you have written that requirement.
The model guidelines from WIPO (which you can find under their requirements for patents FAQ in addition to the legal documents) [wipo.int], which most nations have adopted, include something called the enablement clause:
The invention must be disclosed in an application in a manner sufficiently clear and complete to enable it to be replicated by a person with an ordinary level of skill in the relevant technical field.
A model legal wording i
Re: (Score:2)
Typically you apply for a provisional patent, which doesn't really require anything specific other than some kind of description of the invention. The actual patent application is as you describe, but it also doesn't hit the internet the day it's filed. If you're going to file it's a good idea to do it before you publish because public disclosure normally locks in a timeline on when you *must* file a patent application.
Re: (Score:1)
Sort of.
Under US law, the patent has to supply enough information for someone to build the invention. But the invention, once built, does not necessarily have to actually do what it's supposed to do. The USPTO has issued numerous patents for perpetual motion machines. You can build the devices based on the information in the patents; but the devices, once built, are not actually capable of perpetual motion.
Re: Predictable claims of "sloppy work" (Score:2)
What if it only works if you believe in it?
unpromising (Score:2)
The corollary to Don't Panic: "Don't get excited." (Score:5, Informative)
Oh thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
Skeptical of skepticism. (Score:1)
>What are the reasons for skepticism? There are several, Norman says. First, the undoped material, lead apatite, isn't a metal but rather a nonconducting mineral. And that's an unpromising starting point for making a superconductor. What's more, lead and copper atoms have similar electronic structures, so substituting copper atoms for some of the lead atoms shouldn't greatly affect the electrical properties of the material, Norman says. "You have a rock, and you should still end up with a rock." On top o
Promising reports out of China (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/... [nextbigfuture.com]
They didn't completely verify superconductivity, but something interesting is happening.
In other news.. (Score:1)
Every day makes me wonder (Score:2)
If I had to guess most university chemical engineering labs could cook this up in an afternoon.
So, if it is easy, then someone should have replicated it by now.
Or, it is really tricky to get right with insanely high purities, timing, etc. So, maybe people are failing, but reluctant to be the one to stand up and say, "Didn't work for me." not knowing if they failed to get it right, or it is bogus science.
But e
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Cold Fusion (Score:2)
Most people on this site aren't old enough to remember the bullshit announcement of cold fusion and are thus being sucked in by the exact same cognitive blindspot.
Re: (Score:2)
Many people on this site also aren't old enough to remember the announcement of high temperature superconductivity three years earlier.
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The results weren't weird. They were the result of incompetent experimenters.
The American military takes lots of bullshit seriously. They've bought dowsing rods.
I'm shocked. (Score:2)
it's easy to be skeptical (Score:2)