What would you need to see to say "I am 100% convinced this is / isn't real"?
And how long would you expect it will be before that occurs?
What would you need to see to say "I am 100% convinced this is / isn't real"?
And how long would you expect it will be before that occurs?
What I'm actually even slightly more excited about is "what comes next" -- not the market part, but the "fast follow science". For instance, in the few years after LCBO and LSCO were found (TC~30K) we quickly found YBCO and BSCCO (Tc~130K). I would expect that we'll find a whole class of these materials with substitution tricks that possibly work, and there will be a whole slew of options for "going to market" with the technology. The door this opens is what is more exciting than the specifics of LK-99 itself in my opinion.
Estimating times, after the fast follow science (0.5-2 years optimistically?) we will hopefully have the actual "we're all convinced this is real, and the technology can start to be applied in real devices". Specifically, after everyone is pretty clear on a lot of the material properties and ways to reproducibly make high-quality crystals, so consistency is clear on measurements... then begins the cycles on how to manufacture high enough quality material at scale that it can actually be applied. (specifically, these materials (assuming they're like YCBO/BSCCO) are superconducting crystals that have grains, alignment issues, are physically brittle, have homogeneity issues, etc.) While each solvable, these are all real engineering and material challenges that increase cost to manufacture, and all of this will probably take time before we suddenly get wide-scale products that use this (this is all assuming it's real, haha, there's still plenty of reason to be skeptical).
Few will remember the million replications, but whoever describes a novel version - even if it's no better - will find themselves on equal footing for helping to understand what's happening
(1) When there's peer-reviewed replication from a group of reputable labs.
(2) When I see the classic superconductor-on-magnetic-track demo, but without liquid nitrogen.
Here's his video of making YBCO for anyone that hasn't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLFaa6RPJIU