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Comment by ISL | Hacker News Reader

Very important context: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/39

Also: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/40

In a nutshell: a previous close-to-room-temp superconduction article from this group was retracted from Nature due to two main concerns; (1) a diagram of a measurement needed to confirm superconductivity seemed a lot like one from a 2009 paper, (2) no one else was able to create this material. Oh and that measurement in the 2009 paper was done by the same scientist as the measurement in the retracted paper - and is the source of why the 2009 paper is also under suspicion.

Moreover, it turns out the principal investigator's doctoral thesis has copied substantially from another thesis without proper attribution.

So it seems many are taking a "let's wait and see" approach.

I'm also a bit skeptical given they plan to commercialize this and refuse to release any real information about their fabrication process. Would not be the first breakthrough result that can't be replicated, and as the group has already tampered with data before it's not improbable that this is the case again, from a purely Bayesian point of view.

If I was to make such a discovery I'd be hell-bent to have other labs reproduce it independently as fast as possible, as that would, with very high likelihood, earn me a Nobel prize. Not releasing any information about my wonder material because I might want to get a patent on it (which they probably already filed before publishing results anyway) seems just weird.

This article claims they demoed successfully in front of scientists at a national lab.

I would like to hear that details were provided to independent experimentalists who then replicated the material and demonstrated its properties.

This would make me feel very confident.

The question is: was it demoed in front of a magician? I'd like a scientist AND a professional magician present. It was the key to debunking the homeopathy story that went into Nature.

Could you please elaborate?

Whatever the form of a demonstration, if potential fraud is a concern then you want somebody with expertise in fraud in that domain. So for a demonstration that is statistical, a hotshot statistician is needed. For a physical demonstration you want a hotshot manipulator of the physical world, such as a practical magician. Somebody who already knows a long list of techniques and trade secrets for appearing to defy known.

Moreover, the demonstration is very indirect, like watching a curve in an oscilloscope, not a flying orb that can be seen directly.

We worked with a high temperature (i.e. liquid nitrogen [1]) ambient pressure superconductor. The experiment was quite unimpressive. You put the small block inside liquid nitrogen, with enough wires [2] and a thermocouple to measure the temperature, and connect it to an oscilloscope. You watch how the temperature decrees in the thermocouple and hope the drawing in the oscilloscope does something weird. There is a lot of room to connect the wires to another device [3], or just show fake data in the oscilloscope. [4]

[1] "high temperature" means more than −195.8 °C = −320 °F = 77 K, that is quite cold for most people

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-terminal_sensing

[3] For example, in the OP, they can have a fake ambient temperature superconductor, and connect that cables to a real liquid nitrogen temperature superconductor that is in another room and is put inside and outside the nitrogen by a hidden person.

[4] We had some problems with our superconductor, and we wanted to repeat some measurements. It was sensitive to humidity, and it worked quite well until another student wanted have another stable temperature to compare, and put it in water with ice :( .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benveniste_affair

There's a reason why the science community demands rigorous papers and not "you saw it with your own eyes so it must be true."