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Comment by xqcgrek2 | Hacker News Reader

At this point, profit off the morons still clinging to the hype in the betting markets and move on.

I guarantee some people will be clinging to claims that LK-99 was a superconductor even 5 years from now, just like the cold fusion crowd that still exists.

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A bit harsh don’t you think?

LK-99 was plausibly a high T superconductor candidate, and high T superconductors are a real thing that exist. It is worth attempting to replicate.

Cold fusion says “all of thermodynamics is wrong”. A much bigger claim…

This is the first time I've heard someone claim that cold fusion is flat-out impossible by the laws of thermodynamics, as opposed to just "very unlikely".

I’m not a cold fusion expert but my understanding of it is that it quite grossly violates the first law at least. If the first law is out, thermodynamics as we know it is wrong.

Muon catalyzed cold nuclear fusion is a thing. You're going to pour more energy into creating the muons than you get out though. It doesn't violate thermodynamics, you're just using some kind of catalytic process to get past the fairly massive energy barrier between getting those nuclei close together. You're still gaining net energy from the overall reaction itself. Catalytic reactions don't violate thermodynamics (unless that's really why there's so much catalytic converter theft because you can build perpetual motion machines out of them).

I already predicted that there will always be a group of people who don't agree with the majority.

You are clearly wrong about that! ;)

I love the song “There is a War” by Leonard Cohen as it also shows the inherent binary conflict in many human things.

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