Hacker News Reader

Comment by molticrystal | Hacker News Reader

While I am very skeptical, when working with what seems to be a fluke, it is more important to test the claim then to test a reproduction.

Figure out how to send an independent lab's equipment and personal there or a sample of the substance to an independent lab that verify and if true. Also ensure that they can also do material analysis such as X-Ray spectroscopy & diffraction , and a battery of other stuff if a miracle did occur.

For all we know, this could be one of those accidents of sloppiness that introduces a particular containment that makes everything line up as a super conductor that nobody else will easily reproduce.

View on HN

> For all we know, this could be one of those accidents of sloppiness that introduces a particular containment that makes everything line up as a super conductor that nobody else will easily reproduce.

Maybe we should call this the Hyde Phenomenon.

> Jekyll's involuntary transformations increased in frequency and required ever larger doses of the serum to reverse....Eventually, the supply of salt used in the serum ran low, and subsequent batches prepared from new stocks failed to work. Jekyll speculated that the original ingredient had some impurity that made it work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jekyl_and_Hyde#Plot

I think all they have to do is send a sample to another lab to analyze.

Apparently, people feel it's pretty easy to make, but in any case, if they have a sample they can see if it has the claimed properties and analyze what it's made of.

Condensed Matter Theory Center (a Twitter account affiliated with University of Maryland) says they will send samples.

https://twitter.com/condensed_the/status/1684960318718406656

I get that terrible sense too - either the original studies were in error, or some one-off fluke makes it difficult to reproduce.

On the upside however, and I'd caveat this as not being fully in the know about the art of the possible in solid state labs, it seems that the material isn't that awfully difficult to produce given an appropriate lab and equipment. Hopefully we'll know one way or the other shortly.

I believe MIT researches are already on the ground to do just this, and probably other teams are there too.

why don't they just repro their own experiment? If they can do it twice, then it isn't a fluke. at worst it's something specific to their lab. if they can't do it a second time, then the issue is settled.

I'm sure it will take a lot of time and money to run everything again. but all of earth seems willing to give them whatever resources they need.

It doesn't particularly matter if it is reproducible, as long as they have 1 working superconductor that they can hold in their hand (Room temperature/pressure), its a nobel prize. Other people can figure out how to reproduce it since it is clearly possible.

The challenge is proving they have even that 1 sample.

This.

If it was some kind of fluke and is not easily reproducible but the sample exists and is a room-temperature super-conductor then it becomes a reverse engineering problem.

Considering the magnitude of the discovery and the relatively easy steps to reproduce the process, they would have to be outrageously lazy to have put the paper out without doing it a second time. In absence of a statement that they only tried it once, I think it's fair to assume they at least verified they can reproduce it locally.

Wouldn't the mere existence of a material like this supercede any discrepancies in the documented process?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com