4 ms·

They mention the possibility of a mistake when measuring resistivity, which has already been discussed. But yeah, the partial levitation is not a mistake. Thei

by TillE 3y ago

They mention the possibility of a mistake when measuring resistivity, which has already been discussed. But yeah, the partial levitation is not a mistake. Their abstract suggests LK-99 is a "highly insulating diamagnet", but they are not even able to "detect any reliable diamagnetic signal" with their instruments. I'd rank the possibilities as: fraud, a different material, or some comical series of bizarre mistakes and contamination from the original team.

mrandish 3y ago
While fraud is always possible, so far I'm not getting fraud vibes. I'm really rooting for an eventual outcome somewhere between: "These guys are an experimental mess but damn it seems to kind of work" and "It's not a room temp superconductor but it is something new, interesting and maybe even useful."
canjobear 3y ago
If it’s fraud, what’s the end game?
- bibabaloo 3y ago
  There's betting markets on this, aren't there? The super cynical take is that the original scientists know that it's a fraud but in the lead up to it being proven as fraud can make a lot of money before coming out and saying "sorry, we messed up, experimental errors etc etc"
  - AYBABTME 3y ago
    How are they going to make money with this? A few weeks of buzz isn't going to make anyone rich. It's not like they're going for some product placement along with the buzz.
    - mrtranscendence 3y ago
      I guess they could bet heavily against themselves, try to get prediction markets to coalesce around the result being genuine, them come out saying "oops, we were mistaken"? Bam, rich!
- scarmig 3y ago
  There's also the possibility that the original team is deceiving themselves. By all appearances, they're deeply committed to this result (that could be an act, but that's not the sense I'm getting). But those biases could creep into the analysis of the material: in this particular field, a lot of things are witchcraft (witchcraft that occasionally works). So take a novel material with some interesting properties and human interpretative fallibility, and you get the paper. Which would still mean a powerful diamagnetic material, but that's... well, not something we'd have kilothreads on HN about. My stance (did research in high-Tc superconductors in undergrad ages ago, but doing banal software dev nowadays): who knows. The "easy replication" idea has faded away, which isn't promising, but maybe? It's fun to put my faith in Twitter anime catgirl avatars, though, so I'm still rooting for it.
  - _0ffh 3y ago
    Yeah, self-deception is a distinct possibility, and it would certainly not be the first time for something like that to happen.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  If it's fraud, this would be the second time a South Korean scientist has tried to lie about work that revolutionizes a field
zarzavat 3y ago
I think it’s disrespectful to accuse scientists of fraud in public, when there’s zero evidence of any fraud. It’s just not a good look.
theoretically23 3y ago
When they say "highly insulating diamagnet" they are referring to Pb2SO5 and not the (claimed) LK-99. It would be interesting to understand if they believe Pb2SO5 would exhibit levitation. I presume they would say so if they did.

by TillE 3y ago

mrandish 3y ago

While fraud is always possible, so far I'm not getting fraud vibes. I'm really rooting for an eventual outcome somewhere between: "These guys are an experimental mess but damn it seems to kind of work" and "It's not a room temp superconductor but it is something new, interesting and maybe even useful."

canjobear 3y ago

If it’s fraud, what’s the end game?

bibabaloo 3y ago
There's betting markets on this, aren't there? The super cynical take is that the original scientists know that it's a fraud but in the lead up to it being proven as fraud can make a lot of money before coming out and saying "sorry, we messed up, experimental errors etc etc"
- AYBABTME 3y ago
  How are they going to make money with this? A few weeks of buzz isn't going to make anyone rich. It's not like they're going for some product placement along with the buzz.
  - mrtranscendence 3y ago
    I guess they could bet heavily against themselves, try to get prediction markets to coalesce around the result being genuine, them come out saying "oops, we were mistaken"? Bam, rich!
scarmig 3y ago
There's also the possibility that the original team is deceiving themselves. By all appearances, they're deeply committed to this result (that could be an act, but that's not the sense I'm getting). But those biases could creep into the analysis of the material: in this particular field, a lot of things are witchcraft (witchcraft that occasionally works). So take a novel material with some interesting properties and human interpretative fallibility, and you get the paper. Which would still mean a powerful diamagnetic material, but that's... well, not something we'd have kilothreads on HN about. My stance (did research in high-Tc superconductors in undergrad ages ago, but doing banal software dev nowadays): who knows. The "easy replication" idea has faded away, which isn't promising, but maybe? It's fun to put my faith in Twitter anime catgirl avatars, though, so I'm still rooting for it.
- _0ffh 3y ago
  Yeah, self-deception is a distinct possibility, and it would certainly not be the first time for something like that to happen.
mrguyorama 3y ago
If it's fraud, this would be the second time a South Korean scientist has tried to lie about work that revolutionizes a field

zarzavat 3y ago

I think it’s disrespectful to accuse scientists of fraud in public, when there’s zero evidence of any fraud. It’s just not a good look.

theoretically23 3y ago

When they say "highly insulating diamagnet" they are referring to Pb2SO5 and not the (claimed) LK-99. It would be interesting to understand if they believe Pb2SO5 would exhibit levitation. I presume they would say so if they did.