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Apparently a new paper is supposed to come out from the original authors about the production method [0]. So it really is unclear whether everybody generates th

Apparently a new paper is supposed to come out from the original authors about the production method [0]. So it really is unclear whether everybody generates the same material. It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. [0] https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-temperature-and-ambient-pressure-superconductor.1106083/post-94302371 https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-tempe...

p-e-w 3y ago
> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Indeed. It's also a shame that they chose to use language like: "We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind." When you make grandiose boasts like these, you better be fucking certain you are correct.
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  You'd think they'd find a new word
  - dekhn 3y ago
    "superpressreleasing"
- OJFord 3y ago
  I think a huge part of that is translation: imagine what you might sound like if you wrote a press release for or tried to explain to a layman some project you're involved in, and then had it translated to Korean. Some benign description of why room temp atmospheric pressure superconductors are interesting becomes 'a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind'.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    > imagine what you might sound like if you wrote a press release for or tried to explain to a layman some project you're involved in, and then had it translated to Korean. My understanding is that this was supposed to be a (draft of a) research paper, not a "press release". The article certainly doesn't read like laymen are the intended audience. > Some benign description of why room temp atmospheric pressure superconductors are interesting becomes 'a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind'. Although I don't speak Korean, I strongly doubt that.
    - jfoutz 3y ago
      Wasn’t the paper leaked by the industry guy? Didn’t he edit it to include himself? He might have jazzed up some other wording as well. It’s worth giving the benefit of the doubt to the final product. Let’s get some replication (or not) and go from there.
- XorNot 3y ago
  When you're claiming you have a room temperature superconductor, it would be more suspicious if you weren't claiming that. Because if LK99 works, then that's exactly what it is. It'll be material of the century.
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    Look at some of the most ground-breaking research papers in the history of science, such as the Watson/Crick DNA structure papers. They literally discovered the core of life itself, which is infinitely more important than a room-temperature superconductor. Yet they are incredibly modest about it, and don't waste a single sentence waxing philosophical about what all this means etc. In a similar vein, Andrew Wiles announced his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in a lecture modestly called "Modular Forms, Elliptic Curves and Galois Representations" – not "The Historic Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, with Endless Implications for the Future of Mathematics". This isn't how science is typically done.
    - fbdab103 3y ago
      Nice to be modest after building off of Rosalind Franklin's unaccredited work.
      - supazek 3y ago
        But she is brought up constantly and annoyingly in this regard. Why be a negative Nancy? There’s books from not long after the discovery that tell her story. You don’t think there are people who are legitimately forgotten in the process of every discovery?
    - progman32 3y ago
      I'm perfectly willing to forgive some hubris if their claims turn out to be accurate. Watson and Crick are not a great choice of role model for good character.
      - SamPatt 3y ago
justinclift 3y ago
> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. While that's true, sometimes having some time pressure is useful to make sure a release even happens. They've apparently been working on this for nearly a quarter of a century already... (!)
simplicio 3y ago
Seems the fastest way to clear this up would just be for the original team to send a sample to some other scientists for testing. That would solve any issues regarding other teams reproducing the material incorrectly, and at a first pass, what everyone cares about is whether its a superconductor at room temp, not how to make it.
- junofan 3y ago
  > Once the findings are published in a peer-reviewed journal, which Kim says is in the works, he will support anyone who wants to create and test LK-99 for themselves. [1] Sounds like that’s the plan once they’ve secured the Nature paper. [1]: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2384782-room-temperature-superconductor-breakthrough-met-with-scepticism/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2384782-room-temperatur...
  - p-e-w 3y ago
    Sounds like they have it the wrong way round. Considering the uncertainty surrounding all of this, and the initial problems with replication, why would Nature publish this before it has been independently replicated? Not sure what they're worried about here. They already have priority, and if this replicates, every journal on Earth will be fighting over the privilege to publish it.
    - lovich 3y ago
      Why would Nature have published the production method of a random material if they didn't have experimental evidence of novel behavior?
      - cosmojg 3y ago
        They do that every now and then. Peer review rarely, if ever, involves any sort of replication.
        lovich 3y ago
harry8 3y ago
>It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Saying nothing about these specific papers, in general I disagree strongly. I find the peer review process to be extremely flawed. If you get a bunch of interest from experts in the field on the internet who comment and do work to understand, replicate and analyse (and without hiding behind fake-anonymity) that is a million times better in every dimension than anonymous "peer review." That is, it works better as a BS detector, it works better identifying issues in the data analysis, methodology and so on. Anonymous peer review has been great compared to alternatives for hundreds of years, just now, our alternatives are frequently better than that.
- jcranmer 3y ago
  For these papers in particular, it seems like peer review was badly needed before publication. Sure, it's a meme that Reviewer 2 is always going to complain that could you please run like, 50 more experiments, and for something as potentially groundbreaking as room-temp superconductor, even more so. But one of the main issues with the papers right now is their chemistry is deficient. The key chemical reactions don't balance, and there's also an unexpected and unexplained oxidation state change in the copper. This is the kind of issue that would be flagged quickly in peer review, and it's the sort of catastrophic paper issue that makes replication problematic--how can you be sure that you're comparing against what the original sample was?
  - harry8 3y ago
    Sure and all of that is coming out in public with people's names and reputations attached to it. So we're certainly not behind on any of those issues. I say there are very real benefits too.
chrisjj 3y ago
> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. We've seen no evidence that they were.

p-e-w 3y ago

> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Indeed. It's also a shame that they chose to use language like: "We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind." When you make grandiose boasts like these, you better be fucking certain you are correct.

nonethewiser 3y ago
You'd think they'd find a new word
- dekhn 3y ago
  "superpressreleasing"
OJFord 3y ago
I think a huge part of that is translation: imagine what you might sound like if you wrote a press release for or tried to explain to a layman some project you're involved in, and then had it translated to Korean. Some benign description of why room temp atmospheric pressure superconductors are interesting becomes 'a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind'.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  > imagine what you might sound like if you wrote a press release for or tried to explain to a layman some project you're involved in, and then had it translated to Korean. My understanding is that this was supposed to be a (draft of a) research paper, not a "press release". The article certainly doesn't read like laymen are the intended audience. > Some benign description of why room temp atmospheric pressure superconductors are interesting becomes 'a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind'. Although I don't speak Korean, I strongly doubt that.
  - jfoutz 3y ago
    Wasn’t the paper leaked by the industry guy? Didn’t he edit it to include himself? He might have jazzed up some other wording as well. It’s worth giving the benefit of the doubt to the final product. Let’s get some replication (or not) and go from there.
XorNot 3y ago
When you're claiming you have a room temperature superconductor, it would be more suspicious if you weren't claiming that. Because if LK99 works, then that's exactly what it is. It'll be material of the century.
- p-e-w 3y ago
  Look at some of the most ground-breaking research papers in the history of science, such as the Watson/Crick DNA structure papers. They literally discovered the core of life itself, which is infinitely more important than a room-temperature superconductor. Yet they are incredibly modest about it, and don't waste a single sentence waxing philosophical about what all this means etc. In a similar vein, Andrew Wiles announced his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in a lecture modestly called "Modular Forms, Elliptic Curves and Galois Representations" – not "The Historic Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, with Endless Implications for the Future of Mathematics". This isn't how science is typically done.
  - fbdab103 3y ago
    Nice to be modest after building off of Rosalind Franklin's unaccredited work.
    - supazek 3y ago
      But she is brought up constantly and annoyingly in this regard. Why be a negative Nancy? There’s books from not long after the discovery that tell her story. You don’t think there are people who are legitimately forgotten in the process of every discovery?
  - progman32 3y ago
    I'm perfectly willing to forgive some hubris if their claims turn out to be accurate. Watson and Crick are not a great choice of role model for good character.
    - SamPatt 3y ago

justinclift 3y ago

> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. While that's true, sometimes having some time pressure is useful to make sure a release even happens. They've apparently been working on this for nearly a quarter of a century already... (!)

simplicio 3y ago

Seems the fastest way to clear this up would just be for the original team to send a sample to some other scientists for testing. That would solve any issues regarding other teams reproducing the material incorrectly, and at a first pass, what everyone cares about is whether its a superconductor at room temp, not how to make it.

junofan 3y ago
> Once the findings are published in a peer-reviewed journal, which Kim says is in the works, he will support anyone who wants to create and test LK-99 for themselves. [1] Sounds like that’s the plan once they’ve secured the Nature paper. [1]: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2384782-room-temperature-superconductor-breakthrough-met-with-scepticism/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2384782-room-temperatur...
- p-e-w 3y ago
  Sounds like they have it the wrong way round. Considering the uncertainty surrounding all of this, and the initial problems with replication, why would Nature publish this before it has been independently replicated? Not sure what they're worried about here. They already have priority, and if this replicates, every journal on Earth will be fighting over the privilege to publish it.
  - lovich 3y ago
    Why would Nature have published the production method of a random material if they didn't have experimental evidence of novel behavior?
    - cosmojg 3y ago
      They do that every now and then. Peer review rarely, if ever, involves any sort of replication.
      - lovich 3y ago

harry8 3y ago

>It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. Saying nothing about these specific papers, in general I disagree strongly. I find the peer review process to be extremely flawed. If you get a bunch of interest from experts in the field on the internet who comment and do work to understand, replicate and analyse (and without hiding behind fake-anonymity) that is a million times better in every dimension than anonymous "peer review." That is, it works better as a BS detector, it works better identifying issues in the data analysis, methodology and so on. Anonymous peer review has been great compared to alternatives for hundreds of years, just now, our alternatives are frequently better than that.

jcranmer 3y ago
For these papers in particular, it seems like peer review was badly needed before publication. Sure, it's a meme that Reviewer 2 is always going to complain that could you please run like, 50 more experiments, and for something as potentially groundbreaking as room-temp superconductor, even more so. But one of the main issues with the papers right now is their chemistry is deficient. The key chemical reactions don't balance, and there's also an unexpected and unexplained oxidation state change in the copper. This is the kind of issue that would be flagged quickly in peer review, and it's the sort of catastrophic paper issue that makes replication problematic--how can you be sure that you're comparing against what the original sample was?
- harry8 3y ago
  Sure and all of that is coming out in public with people's names and reputations attached to it. So we're certainly not behind on any of those issues. I say there are very real benefits too.

chrisjj 3y ago

> It's a shame that these papers were published before they were polished by the authors. We've seen no evidence that they were.