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Thanks for your insight. Most people reading sci-pop articles are by now hopefully used to sensationalism. But I think in this case (which can be equally bad)

by dav_Oz 4y ago

Thanks for your insight. Most people reading sci-pop articles are by now hopefully used to sensationalism. But I think in this case (which can be equally bad) the journalist only spoke to codensed matter physicists biased towards or having a stake in the superexchange explanation, normally one would at least incorporate one skeptical position (such as yours, even if it's a minority one) in yet unsettled cases rather than just letting decency speak out of the scientists themselves: >But Yazdani and other researchers caution that there’s still a chance, however remote, that glue strength and ease of hopping move in lockstep for some other reason, and that the field is falling into the classic correlation-equals-causation trap. For Yazdani, the real way to prove a causal relationship will be to harness superexchange to engineer some flashy new superconductors.

z2h-a6n 4y ago
The people quoted in the article are all fairly well known in the field, and while I obviously can't speak for them (especially because each of them alone has much more experience in the field than I do) I expect that they generally have realistic rather than what I might call sensationalistic views of this result. I expect this is also true of the authors of the work in question, though of course they may be even more excited about the result (with good reason). To be clear, this is an interesting result, and is certainly food for thought, but I think it's too soon to tell how much of the "cuprate problem" it solves. I my guess that the sensationalism in the article is just a combination of overexcitement and misinterpretation by the journalist. I think most people in the field would agree that this result is interesting, and could end up being quite important. If the journalist heard something like this from everyone he asked, he may have misinterpreted this as the matter being "settled" in the view of most of the community.

by dav_Oz 4y ago

z2h-a6n 4y ago

The people quoted in the article are all fairly well known in the field, and while I obviously can't speak for them (especially because each of them alone has much more experience in the field than I do) I expect that they generally have realistic rather than what I might call sensationalistic views of this result. I expect this is also true of the authors of the work in question, though of course they may be even more excited about the result (with good reason). To be clear, this is an interesting result, and is certainly food for thought, but I think it's too soon to tell how much of the "cuprate problem" it solves. I my guess that the sensationalism in the article is just a combination of overexcitement and misinterpretation by the journalist. I think most people in the field would agree that this result is interesting, and could end up being quite important. If the journalist heard something like this from everyone he asked, he may have misinterpreted this as the matter being "settled" in the view of most of the community.