Comment by emtel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by emtel | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

There seems to be a group of people who have appointed themselves the science police. If you are excited about a tantalizing phenomenon that has yet to withstand expert scrutiny, you can expect to hear from them!

I do not understand this mentality. There is no conflict between these two statements:

- LK99 cannot be considered a proven superconductor until there have been multiple replications that withstand expert scrutiny.

- The evidence that is freely available on twitter and elsewhere right now is worth getting excited about.

Look, this isn't like Covid, where at least there is some public interest served by a skeptical approach to treatments. At least for the next six months or so, LK99 is an almost purely scientific topic with almost no wider implications.

But people love to clutch their pearls - I have read twitter commentators claiming they are concerned that amateur replicators may get lead poisoning! Lead, while dangerous, is not polonium or something - there are plenty of reasons people choose to tolerate some exposure (recreational shooting, civil aviation, fishing...), all of which I would consider less compelling that what may be the biggest scientific breakthrough in decades. I do not think people are truly concerned about lead exposure, I think they want people to "stay in their lanes". An attitude that I find detestable.

The fact that such a (possible) enormous breakthrough is within the reach of chemistry amateurs is wonderful! Everybody who has the equipment, knowledge, and inclination to attempt a replication should do so, and if you do, I hope you will post videos online so I can cheer you on.

I am very bullish on LK99, but it is of course with the caveat that it needs replication. I am not seeing anyone not saying that. One of the big exciting things about it has been that there HAS been some replication, between simulations and science. This article is too incredulous and does get a bit of “science police” feel.

In the 1800s people were often inventing and researching in their garage labs, we need more amateur science not less.

science has advanced enormously since the 1800s. little home-made labs can't compete with billion-dollar research institutes in the hard-sciences.

these guys claimed big, but their equipment couldn't generate temperatures above 127C (Celsius), basically just a bit more than a tea kettle.

they seem to lack the hardware, and super-computing power required to model and simulate the molecular dynamics.

The science police want to keep their authority. Evidence on Twitter isn't real evidence unless it had been endorsed by the science police

The funny thing is it's mostly not even real scientists doing this kind of policing.

The only downside is disappointment after great excitement, and the animosity it can create towards the field's viability.

That depends on how it all crashes. If it was fraud, then yes. But there are ways in which it can crash that would result in more funding to rule out spurious or transient effects that by themselves suggest interesting areas of research.

But yes, the chance of a 'superconductivity winter' is definitely there. What surprises me is how this whole thing has blown up. People that would not be able to tell a copper wire from an aluminum one are talking about superconductors. That really gets me, why the sudden massive interest?

> People that would not be able to tell a copper wire from an aluminum one are talking about superconductors

i know this was hyperbole, but I think the fact that it is almost certainly false is important.

I think the reason that people are so excited is that you can learn the basic facts about superconductivity in a few hours on wikipedia. The basics are not that complicated: Superconductors have zero resistance below a critical temperature, are diamagnetic due to induced eddy currents that cancel out magnetic fields, and the high temperature ones exhibit "flux pinning" where magnetic field lines can get stuck at defects in the material, leading to stable levitation.

Having learned all this over the past week, I certainly don't consider myself an expert. I'm well aware I don't know 10% of what a first year physics grad student probably knows. But it's enough to follow along, and ask basic questions. Its _okay_ for people to do this even if they aren't remotely qualified to make final judgments about LK99.

To me it seems no more improper than someone talking excitedly about the rocket equation or orbital mechanics even though they don't have an aerospace degree.

As for why the sudden massive interest? Why wouldn't there be massive interest? Its a huge potential breakthrough, with multiple claimed reproductions already, and, most astonishingly, it could have been discovered (though not understood) in the 19th century! Maybe even earlier! Of course the fact that something so basic was just lying around waiting to be found is generating interest!

> The basics are not that complicated

I know what you're getting at but your list isn't the 'basics', those are the symptoms. It's like saying you understand the basics about cancer because tumors grow and people die. It doesn't even begin to scratch the surface and it certainly isn't the basics, it is just the part that laypeople (myself included) see when looking from the outside in.

The 'basics' not being so simple is exactly why the search for conveniently usable superconductors is an ongoing thing after a century. Copper wire was solved on the day we needed it, and even if it would not have worked we would have had a whole bunch of fall back materials available.

I didn't say "the basics of superconductor theory" I said "the basic facts about superconductors", and I stand by my claim that those facts are enough to form an opinion about LK99 that is "above the noise floor", if you will.

Ermm, no, that was a literal quote, as you can see from your own comment halfway up the page.

And those bits aren't nearly enough to form an opinion about LK99, it may be enough to form an opinion about what the appearance of a generic, cheap room temperature super conductor might do for the world from a lay persons perpective. But it doesn't say anything about LK99.

> that was a literal quote

They did in fact say "The basics are not that complicated".

Now please look at the previous sentence, which contains the full version: "the basic facts about superconductivity"

You quoted the short version, then gave a rebuttal that doesn't really hold up when you consider the long version.

Ah yes, you're right. Thank you for pointing that out.

I think there is a number of reasons this blew up, but I think the biggest one is the lack of good news.

We all see weirder weather than we used to and man made climate change is implicated.

War in Ukraine.

Tensions with China.

Political turmoil in the U.S. with small minorities driving the news cycle with crazy talk.

We just got through COVID, and hopefully end of the inflation scare.

Housing prices suck the hope out of most on a daily basis.

Suddenly, a miracle material seems to appear that could change the game at so many levels, not owned by one corporation or country. And its a magnet, and everyone loves magnets....its the one things we've all experienced that feels like magic...and that magic was going to save us.

So yeah. That's my diagnosis.

This is how I feel. I chose to have children with the knowledge that there is a very real possibility that they may inherit a hell scape when I’m dead. The thought of them having the possibility of a better future combined with finally having something positive to hope for fills a void that I believe many people share.

Interesting, there may be something to your observation. It also explains why you get these 'fireman rescues cat' news articles, even when there is plenty of other news, most of it very negative. And guess what then gets talked about.

> That really gets me, why the sudden massive interest?

Because if this is real it's basically science fiction come to life.

I think we are witnessing that animosity right now, and if I understand correctly, it seems to be the result of (allegedly) fraudulent claims that people got excited about, e.g. Ranga Dias.

But I have seen absolutely no evidence that anybody is acting in bad faith here, and so I see no reason to treat this the way we ought to treat fraud.

> Lead, while dangerous, is not polonium or something - there are plenty of reasons people choose to tolerate some exposure (recreational shooting, civil aviation, fishing...)

The synthesis of LK-99 involves powdered lead salts. There's quite a lot more hazard in handling those than there is in handling metallic lead in the course of shooting/fishing.

(deleted)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com