- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2999441
I’m not plugged into all the hype around lk99, but this person seems to be a nice balance of hype, technical background and eagerness to not be wrong about things.
They seem to make a good and simple case for why the superconductor possibility is slipping away (as far as mostly internet hype based replication attempts go)
Oh sure. But for lay people it seemed that some of the magnetic behaviours were suggestive. That they can all be explained by something much more mundane means that all we have is simulations that didn’t even rule out it being a mundane material.
I’m a lay person, and I’ve been beating the skepticism drum on this since day 1. If someone had actually discovered a room temperature, ambient pressure superconductor, their notes would be meticulous and precise, they would have replicated their results multiple times before publishing anything at all, and they’d already be lining up untold scores of investors. In other words, anybody that discovers how to do this is going to be debilitatingly rich forever. And they’re going to treat it as such.
Instead, what we got was much more akin to the press coverage of this year’s latest perpetual motion machine. What I don’t know is whether the people that originally announced LK-99 knew it wasn’t what they claimed, or they were confused but hopeful. In other words, were they hucksters looking for attention, or innocently ignorant and hoping someone could clarify.
I’m a materials science layperson but not a science layperson … I’ve got some experience in scientific research.
And, IMO, you’re overestimating scientists here or casting a pretty idealised picture of how research and breakthroughs happen. Which, I think, was precisely part of the appeal of this story, the messiness of it and the possibility that, however foggy the truth was and all the hype aside, there was something interesting going on.
For example, for me, and I hope the general public, I think there’ll be an interesting story in how this whole thing happened. The public image of science is way too idealised and consumeristic (where people want to consume “finalised results” and hype rather than scientific process and curiosity) … instead it’d be nice to hear about how a group of researchers got too excited, or why they made fundamental errors … and why did certain people around the world get excited and try to replicate it? What’s the story behind the material itself? Why did the researchers pursue it and what did they see in the material (on which there does seem to be an interesting story about theories from soviet scientists that the west ignore)? Beyond all of that, given the simulation results … is there anything to be taken from the material for future research?
There likely won’t be, just like there’s never any follow-up on the solar roadways people getting millions in government funding (so it must be real), or the perpetual motion generator being outright fraud, or the firehose of utter BS battery “breakthrough” stories. Sensationalism gets headlines, boring retractions don’t.
And just to be very clear about my position and why I’m not overestimating anyone, breakthroughs like what was claimed with LK-99 rarely happen at all. Research is slow, arduous, filled with dead ends and side quests. Real development in the real world happens with incremental improvement almost all of the time rather than some “eureka!” moment. What I would expect from a group that has discovered a method to turn lead into gold is a pile of gold before they ever mention it. Similarly, if someone claims to have a room temperature, atmospheric pressure superconductor, they’ll have followed their own process more than once and taken more precise notes the second time around.
Emphasis added. “Rarely” is not “never.”
But that exact same argument can explain why the discoverers of a room-temperature superconductor would rush to get their results out.
See for example the Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell telephone controversy. There was a race to the patent office, Bell won the battle, and Gray vanished into obscurity.
That would only be true if there’s a race to report the discovery, and there isn’t. Which is another red flag.
There were duelling papers released within hours of each other. One of the researchers involved says that they had to release before they were ready due to an “incident.” There certainly seems to be something going on behind the scenes that could be described as a race to report the discovery, if only within the one group of discoverers.