Damn, why is nobody talking more about the theory of it?<p>What I see to ponder:<p>- (1970, brinkman, rice) "application of gutzwiller's variational method to the metal-insulator transition"<p>- (2001, hyun-tak kim) "extension of the brinkman-rice picture and the mott transition"<p>- (2002, hyun-tak kim) "extended brinkman-rice picture and its application to high-Tc superconductors"<p>- (2021, hyun-tak kim) "Room-temperature-superconducting Tc driven by electron correlation"<p>even briefly reading relevant research (other than these papers) says even if a group could not replicate lk99 at first try, there's more to it. cooking the right way should be insanely difficult because this is a probabilistic event after all. should not be happening homogenously and should not be happening in a wide-band of parameters. I think the groups will eventually reach a narrow range of parameters to replicate but will take a lot of effort.
Been following this very closely. Seems like the one takeaway is that whatever material this is, it's interesting. It's also difficult to synthesize in bulk, which is a shame because superconductivity is not easy to observe in non-bulk materials (think: powder).<p>Note: I have a physics degree and a little bit of condensed matter experience, but nothing like anyone actually working in the field. Just some graduate courses and a bit of lab work experience.
I’m not an expert, but I’ve used superconductors (I believe YBCO) when I taught physics lab. We cooled samples down with liquid nitrogen and put them over a magnet. They levitate, but not like in the video that the Korean team released. True superconductors enjoy “flux pinning”, meaning wherever you put them on a magnet, they’ll freeze in that position (or move around an axis of constant flux.) In the LK-99 video that they released, they show that the sample is repelled by a magnet. This seems to contradict the HTS claim and wondered if I’m missing something because surely so many experts can’t be this wrong.<p>My background is in physics, but not superconductors.
Regardless if LK-99 is truly a Room-Temperature Superconductor or not, only 112 years passed since Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovered superconductivity on April 8, 1911, 4 PM [1] [2]: resistance not futile, but "practically zero". The first loaf of sliced bread was sold commercially on July 7, 1928 [3]. The rate of progress is astonishing.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heike_Kamerlingh_Onnes#Superconductivity" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heike_Kamerlingh_Onnes#Superco...</a><p>[2] 2010, "The discovery of superconductivity", <a href="https://www.ilorentz.org/history/cold/DelftKes_HKO_PT.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.ilorentz.org/history/cold/DelftKes_HKO_PT.pdf</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Frederick_Rohwedder" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Frederick_Rohwedder</a>
As I learned from the Dave's EEVBlog video [1], their demonstration video [2] says in the description that the material was deposited onto a copper plate which could probably explain the interaction with the magnet. And as I just noticed, the description has since been changed and now says »The sample was thermally deposited on a enriched uranium 235 plate.«<p>EDIT: Correction, I got the link to the video saying deposited onto uranium [2] from [1] but that is not the actual link from their web page which is [3] and still says deposited onto copper. So someone on eevblog.com was having some fun.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.eevblog.com/2023/07/31/eevblog-1555-korean-lk-99-ambient-temperature-superconductor-demo-video-busted/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.eevblog.com/2023/07/31/eevblog-1555-korean-lk-99...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w2qc_BoEiU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w2qc_BoEiU</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtVjGWpbE7k">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtVjGWpbE7k</a>
From what I've gathered, the ingredients of LK99 are common but cooking the right way is difficult. Supposedly the team itself only gets it right 1 time in 10.<p>There have also been a lot of complaints that the patents and papers are missing info you'd want to have when reproducing. So that's making it even harder to reproduce. The upshot tho is that the discoverers seem to be available for tips by email.<p>All in all were going to have to wait more than a few days for reproduction it seems.
We thought Oppenheimer was the way to instill a love of physics to young people but turns out LK-99 was the way to winning people's hearts and minds to delve more into physics.
For such an important discovery (if it is real), that seems it could be replicated in a few days, if I were the team that did the discovery, I would create a video recording of the whole process and all the measurements and share it with the textual article. It sounds like that would provide for an easier way to replicate plus more proofs of the discovery.
I translated a survey about LK-99 papers to English<p><a href="https://hackmd.io/DMjYGOJFRheZw5XZU8kqKg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://hackmd.io/DMjYGOJFRheZw5XZU8kqKg</a>
Whether or not this turns out to be real the whole incident has been extremely entertaining, way more than I would have expected. Replication attempts being documented in real time on Twitter and livestreamed on Twitch, news about infighting and drama among the researchers who published the paper, constant fluxations in the betting markets as new news comes out. It's been a wild ride.
So, Russian anime cat girl seems to have cooked a sample and demonstrated some of the claimed properties, although she's explicit that it shouldn't be considered a "replication".<p><a href="https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685731177523449856" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685731177523449856</a>
Everybody's talking about reproducing the material which is great, but will take time. Why don't the authors supply their existing material to an independent lab for earlier confirmation?
So much speculation but I don’t see anyone asking this: Who has access to samples from the original lab? If synthesis hasn’t been cracked yet, wouldn’t the next-best thing be independent validation of the original samples?
Iris Alexandra's twitter is especially enthralling. Seems like so much discoveries and innovation happens from computer science to physics, chemistry and biology all from people with anime profile pictures.
It is interesting to see how much of the replication is done by the Chinese and how little is done by the Western countries. Is this the difference between the making-stuff-happen attitude and the sclerotic attitude?
It's not looking good so far. This team reproduced several variants of the formula, and none of them behaved in an interesting way: <a href="https://nitter.sneed.network/altryne/status/1686029047053090816#m" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://nitter.sneed.network/altryne/status/1686029047053090...</a>
This is a race that I earnestly hope either someone wins quickly, or everyone loses... again rather quickly. For incredible claims you typically require incredible evidence, at the moment we're slightly better than hearsay but we've a long way to go get conclusive proof.
I've been live following this thread:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/iris_igb/status/1685731177523449856" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/iris_igb/status/1685731177523449856</a>
I'm resigned to disappointment for this. It's the modern days Pons and Fleischmann.<p>Hopefully the lack of confirmation so far is due to people checking, double checking and triple checking, along with a healthy dose of "we don't want to be tarred with the same brush".
Note that the original table has been more recently updated: <a href="https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-temperature-and-ambient-pressure-superconductor.1106083/page-11?post=94266395#post-94266395" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-tempe...</a>
I've only seen one picture of an alleged successful replication yet: <a href="https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685731177523449856" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/iris_IGB/status/1685731177523449856</a>
Argonne National Lab has synthesized LK-99 and is beginning analysis: <a href="https://twitter.com/BenShindel/status/1686115699779878912" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/BenShindel/status/1686115699779878912</a><p>Jorg Maser (PhD, Gottingen) at Argonne is working on it: <a href="https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1686000150777614336" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1686000150777614336</a>
I am surprised that anyone still thinks this thing is legit. I mean, I wish it was true, but the publication, the approach and the infights in the team do not instill confidence.<p>To me, it seems they can not recreate the "effect" themselves. Otherwise they would be shipping their samples around the world by now.
I’m just curious as a layman, why aren’t the paper authors helping in this race whatsoever? It seems a lot of folks are guessing on the recipe. I haven’t seen any communication from the LK from LK99. Seems like radio silence
This twitter handle contains some interesting back story investigation <a href="https://twitter.com/8teAPi" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://twitter.com/8teAPi</a>
here's a video I listened to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLr95AFBRXI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLr95AFBRXI</a> on it that delves relatively deep for anyone catching up (22m)
I feel like I am out of the loop on this one. But everything I am seeing makes me skeptical, can anyone explain why I should be excited about this being anything more than just a fake paper?
I <i>love</i> that this is happening realtime in the open. I can just about follow the science, and it's so incredibly exciting to watch this unfold live
Is there any HN effect by which enough contrary early opinion here could increase the odds of eventual triumph?<p>On the chance that there is, I will do my part:<p><i>In mice.</i>
Saw some people hyping up markets where people are betting on prediction markets whether or not LK-99 will replicate. Can't help but feel like that money would be better spent just paying off some labs to actually try to replicate the process.<p>The response I got from a predictions market enthusiast was that having a sufficiently large market would motivate people to attempt to have the process replicated and buy options on the outcome once they confirm their findings in order to cash out. Which gives me strong feelings of scamming the uninformed and gullible.<p>As for comments on LK-99 itself, I don't understand why nobody has gotten their hands on an existing sample to verify that it's legitimate. Shouldn't the minimum requirements be a magnet and the material sample, to demonstrate it floating through the meissner effect?
Off topic: any tool to have a quick summarization like this?<p>---<p>The blog post is about the discovery of a purported room-temperature-and-pressure (RTP) superconductor, labeled "LK-99". The discovery was announced in two papers published on arxiv.org on July 22, 2023. The first paper, which was short and seemed hastily written, had three authors: Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, and Young-Wan Kwon. The second paper was more detailed and had six authors, with Young-Wan Kwon being removed from the author list.<p>The LK-99 superconductor, originally synthesized in 1999, is claimed to have a critical temperature of 127°C, above the boiling point of water. The synthesis method is simple: finely grind and mix Lanarkite (Pb2(SO4)O) and Copper Phosphide (Cu3P) and bake it at 925°C in a vacuum chamber for a day.<p>The discovery has sparked a mix of skepticism and curiosity online. Young-Wan Kwon, the removed author from the first paper, crashed a science conference to talk about the discovery, adding to the intrigue.<p>The blog post also discusses the implications of a room-temperature superconductor, which could allow for things like an infinitely long power cable without loss, or a portable MRI scanner. It also provides a timeline of events and a list of ongoing replication efforts by various academic and private groups. The author emphasizes that scientific research is a gradual process, and the validity of the LK-99 superconductor is still being investigated.
Currently, Cold Fusion used in small scale isotope breeders for medical purposes. One 2kWt breeder with CF can replace 100kWt traditional breeding plant.
My two-cents from my armchair spaceship: I thought we had solved quantum mechanics! If this material is real, why can't somebody run a computer code and calculate its theoretical conductivity/resistance? Did I suffer all that childhood trauma with wave functions to now, in my forties, have to learn it was all smoke and mirrors?