4 ms·
Do we know whether the mechanism was proposed before or after observing the results? If they found the material because of the theory, then I think it's very r
by dllthomas 3y ago
Do we know whether the mechanism was proposed before or after observing the results? If they found the material because of the theory, then I think it's very relevant.
- beowulfey 3y agoSomeone who speaks Korean may have to go through the original paper. It is LK-99 though; I wonder if they tried 99 other combinations first!
- stu255 3y agoNo, Lee and Kim first discovered the material in 1999 and have spent 20 years doing other things in between getting help to figure out how to isolate LK-99 and reproduce the correct grain structure. They eventually got a world class physical chemist, Kwon. There is now a huge bust up within the team, hence the muddled race to publish and claim credit.
- beowulfey 3y agoAhh that makes sense. I was wondering what was going on with the two papers and thought it might be something like that too. Thanks for the extra details.
- gus_massa 3y agoSomewhat similar compounds are superconductors, so it's possible that a wrong theory gave them a lucky hint to modify an old superconductor into the new superconductor.