Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcranmer | Hacker News Reader

There is a new claim or two of room-temperature superconductors published on Arxiv every year: https://nitter.net/peternemes/status/1684483863999827973#m... and yet this is the only one that sets the Twitters afire.

The reaction I've seen from most of the scientists has been pretty negative on the papers. The originals aren't strong papers. The chemistry has issues: https://nitter.net/Robert_Palgrave/status/168545015680691814... (unbalanced equations, starting materials have pretty different element ratios to final products). As for the main claim, note that LK-99 seems to be a poorer conductor than copper wire at room temperature: https://nitter.net/bedoya_pinto/status/1686848392616423425#m... which is the kind of thing that should really cause a record scratch and make everyone go "um, I think you did something wrong there"--it's something that absolutely would be caught in peer review.

View on HN

Your link sort of hints at the reason, I think. There's enough posted to make a serious run at replicating it, and it seems to be simple enough that you can do it in a kitchen. At the same time, it's not so easy that people have cleanly demonstrated it -- the constant rollercoaster of "we're so back" and "it's so over" I think drives some of the hype.

It also seems like it has at least pretty strong diamagnetism, which while not a demonstration of superconductivity is both somewhat interesting and gives a vivid demonstration that's amenable to social media.

I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you trying to say that people shouldn’t be paying attention to this? I would personally be horrified if I found out that the paper on the synthesis of a room temperature superconductor went through the normal peer review process instead of letting the world know they discovered something huge.

My point is why should this unreviewed claim of ambient condition superconductor be exalted as the holy grail and all of the other unreviewed claims of ambient condition superconductor languish in obscurity when they come out? It's definitely not for the strength of evidence!

It's pretty much due to the strength of evidence.

There is no conclusive proof that this is a superconductor on the replications, but the evidence has been on a different level from nearly everything else you'll find on Arxiv since the beginning.

AIUI, things that float in a magnetic field at ~room temperature are moderately common claims, and this is really the only evidence that LK-99 might be a room-temperature superconductor. The published ancillary evidence in the original paper actually raises red flags that isn't a superconductor--the "0 resistivity" domain in their temperature-dependent resistivity plot is (when you realize the units they're using) actually slightly less resistive than regular copper wire, which suggests that the sharp drop in resistivity may be nothing more than a pedestrian phase change in the material.

> things that float in a magnetic field at ~room temperature are moderately common claims

At monopolar magnetic fields weak enough to come from a permanent magnet is a lot rarer.

Almost all superconductor claims come from measuring magnetic resonance or direct resistance measurements. Both are noisy things to measure, and won't get you reliable results.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com