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One somewhat ironic fact of this story is that the rogue former employee perhaps deserves some credit for bringing this thing out into the world. They had been

One somewhat ironic fact of this story is that the rogue former employee perhaps deserves some credit for bringing this thing out into the world. They had been working on this for quite a long time themselves, rightfully so. But now the whole world is working on it and exploring other methods and combinations of materials I would assume (to improve upon the original design and avoid any patents). How long would they have kept this thing to themselves without the rogue employee bringing this thing to light? Perhaps that was part of the rogue former employee's motivation in "going rogue": that this thing needs to see the light of day so it can start to benefit humanity.

King-Aaron 3y ago
Have you got any back-story on that? I only saw that their team posted it to arxiv, hadn't heard the other drama
- jjallen 3y ago
  A former employee was the first to publish a paper with only three authors. I am surprised you haven't heard about this. Then a few hours later a paper was published with six authors (without one of the original three authors), ostensibly by the core team that has been working on this. There should be much more detail on the Internet if you search for it.
  - wetmore 3y ago
    I also hadn't heard about this for what it's worth.
    - cthalupa 3y ago
      It's one of the reasons people were thinking this might not be a fraud. Nobel prizes are capped to 3 people, and the speculation is that the rogue person published early to try and ensure they were one of the people that received it. No reason for infighting like that if you know it's a hoax.
      - Iulioh 3y ago
        I even wondered about that, is ever a thing? Like saying "SORRY, FIRST" to the nobel committee?
      - oldgradstudent 3y ago
        > No reason for infighting like that if you know it's a hoax. There was plenty of bitter infighting over credit during the 1989 cold fusion fiasco. Knowing it's not a hoax does not mean it is true. As always, only reproduction attempts matter.
        cthalupa 3y ago
        I never said it was true. Just that it's some evidence against it being a fraud.
  - suby 3y ago
    Notably, the missing author from the second paper is the rogue employee who published the first paper. The order of the first two authors is the same for both papers.
    - acters 3y ago
      earlier in the week, someone posted that the person who posted the paper early is someone who wanted to fund the project, but the researchers didn't want to include him. So he took as much data as he could collect and posted it publicly with the addition of his name. He is not a researcher or scientist for the team.
- belter 3y ago
  See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36953050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36953050
  - King-Aaron 3y ago
    Fascinating, thank you
- httpz 3y ago
  In the early 90s, Prof. Choi theorized a new way of creating a room temperature superconductor but it wasn't really accepted by the mainstream. Supposedly, in 1999, two researchers in Choi's lab, Lee and Kim (hence LK), created the first sample of LK-99. They weren't able to reliably replicate nor were they able to fully explain the theory. In 2017, as a dying wish, Choi asked Lee and Kim to continue on with the LK-99 research but asked to not publish it until they understand the theory behind it. They founded a lab and collaborated with other scientists in the field and Kwon was one of them. 4 months ago, Kwon left the lab and two weeks ago Kwon leaked the paper. The paper Kwon leaked only listed Lee, Kim and Kwon as the authors and excluded other collaborators. Some suspect Kwon excluded the other collaborators because Nobel prize can only be awarded to three people at most. A few days after the leak, Lee & Kim hastily published a paper with four more authors but not Kwon. https://namu.wiki/w/LK-99/%EC%A0%84%EA%B0%9C https://namu.wiki/w/LK-99/%EC%A0%84%EA%B0%9C
wcerfgba 3y ago
Exactly, the 99 stands for 1999, so potentially this material has existed for over 20 years and we could have started testing and replication on a much wider scale a decade ago. What benefit have we gained by disseminating this research so slowly?
- ssl232 3y ago
  I don't know if this is true or not, but I read something suggesting they produced it in 1999 as a side product of something else but didn't start to examine its properties properly until a handful of years ago.
- marmakoide 3y ago
  It might be that the process to make LK99, produces a fraction of the Good Stuff, which went under the radar until recently. It would not have been the first time. If it is confirmed with the proper methodology ... right now it's too early to build castles on LK99.
- Iulioh 3y ago
  This reminds me of an Asimov novel (don't remember the name) In this universe there are long life humans that don't really collaborate with other humans (like a single person, not a group of quasi immortal humans) in the scientific field to have all the credit because who cares if you take 200 years for a discovery if the glory is all yours
  - mousetree 3y ago
    Maybe The Naked Sun or one of the books in that series? It’s been years since I read it but I remember there being some motif about people not interacting physically and living a long time.
    - oblio 3y ago
      https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria
  - 3y ago
pcrh 3y ago
There's apparently a patent published in 2020. It surprises me that it never gained attention. edit: KR20210062550A - Mehtod of manufacturing ceramic composite with low resistance including superconductors and the composite thereof - https://patents.google.com/patent/KR20210062550A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/KR20210062550A/en
- BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
  people will claim all kinds of crazy, implausible shit in patents. you would go insane trying to draw conclusions from the set of applications sent to patent offices as a whole, it would be impossible to differentiate what is legitimately worth paying attention to.
  - fennecfoxy 3y ago
    I hate that the patent system went from engineers patenting a working, proven idea to business a-holes patenting an "idea" then sitting on their butts waiting for an engineer somewhere to prove the idea so that they can raise their hand and say "I have the patent on that". The modern patent system is despicable.
    - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
      There are actually provisions that are supposed to prevent that. It's called the enablement requirement. You cannot claim an invention that you don't know how to make. But in practice, it turns out to be easy to argue around that; there are so many non-experts involved in the process. So here we are.
- imdsm 3y ago
  Imagine if human progress had taken a wrong turn in 2020 all becomes of a typo
  - lovemenot 3y ago
    ... all because of ... ?
jjallen 3y ago
I'd like to add that if this claim of having replicated the material with the reportedly poor description of how to do so is true then it really isn't that hard to replicate. I am surprised they haven't published a paper by now. And this suggests that they were conflicted for some reason about publishing, likely commercially so (as evidenced about the patent). Maybe they were trying to create a product with it that they could sell before others could replicate the material. So the rogue employee does absolutely deserve credit for bringing this thing into the world and humanity should not stigmatize them for doing so; perhaps we should do exactly the opposite.
- Iulioh 3y ago
  >reportedly poor description of how to do so Isn't it false? I have read that the description is pretty extensive, just the yelds are really bad because the production method is 1) hard and 2) inconsistent? So the description is good but hard to replicate
- a-user-you-like 3y ago
  > and humanity should not stigmatize them for doing so If he really did it for all mankind then give him a huge prize
m463 3y ago
Wait, how did co-discoverer a few days ago become rogue former employee today?
- jjallen 3y ago
  Supposedly he worked there until four months ago. I am just repeating stuff I read on the Internet and I don't know that we know all of the facts just yet FYI.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- krisoft 3y ago
  It is not a contradiction. One can be both. The alegation is that the person in question worked with them on the research, and they published it on arxiv without the permission of the others. Thus they can be a co-discoverer and also rogue former employee.
- anonylizard 3y ago
  There's 3 main parties to LK99. L&K, are two PHDs taught by their now dead former professor. Their research into LK-99 is inherited from their former professor but they lacked funding, hence it was a hobby project for a long time, and they needed funding to work on it full time. The Korean professor: A professor who started taking interest and sponsoring the project for the last few years. However, he likely didn't participate directly in the research much. The American professor (Ethnically Korean): A professor who was brought in rather recently (Maybe last 1-2 years?), to help bring credibility to the team. He is probably the one with the expertise to perform measurement and ascertain that it is a superconductor. The Korean professor got kicked out from the team for unknown reasons. This was evidenced in the April paper published in Korea, which lacked the Korean professor's name. Quantum center also removed him from the website. 4 months later, he was back with a vengeance, and published the paper, with only him, and L&K on it (ie, the 3 man paper). The Korean professor possesses no sample, and also lacks the original data for LK-99. A day later, the american professor hastily rushed out another paper (The 6-man paper), with L&K, himself, and 3 irrelevant lab assistants. Since the earlier Korean paper in April got 0 attention and was treated like a typical troll paper. They probably assumed posting on arxiv was just good material for later legal battles, but they could otherwise continue happily researching and patenting their material. However, interest in LK-99 exploded like a nuke, because the first signal for credibility: That two professors were in a bitter battle over authorship, did not escape people's eyes. 2 days later, the Korean professor had a presentation at a Korean conference, but attendees were disappointed by his data and lack of samples (Prediction markets hit a low of 15% at this point). However, the American professor took control of media communications, and quickly dissociated with the Korean professor, yet he completely stood by the claims of LK-99. Now the American professor has talked to numerous Korean media and directly sent an exclusive video to NYT. Its interesting why L&K chose the American professor over the Korean one. Needless to say, if this works out, the interpersonal saga will end up in a Netflix documentary, and probably many court cases. I should also note that the nobel prize is likely a secondary concern for the group. They aren't in a comfortable academic position where money is only a bonus. They were struggling PHDs for a long time. Nobel prize money is too little, and will come way too late to make a difference for their lives. L&K and the American professor are likely trying to maximize the value of their patents and know how to sell to investors, rather than to make public verification ASAP, which would be optimizing for a nobel prize.
highwaylights 3y ago
> that this thing needs to see the light of day so it can start to benefit humanity. .. by way of Back to the Future hoverboards.
kome 3y ago
Young-Wan Kwon's legacy will undoubtedly be that of the hero of LK99. There is a lingering thought that had this discovery been made in the US, it might have been hidden indefinitely by the military-industrial complex, never to see the light of day.
baq 3y ago
> The Croatian scientists say that current will flow effortlessly through their material, a mixture of lead carbonate and lead and silver oxides, at up to about 30 °C. [...] > Danijel Djurek, a physicist at A. Volta Applied Ceramics in Zagreb, Croatia, claims that he discovered his superconducting ceramic mixture in the late 1980s. But he was unable to pin down the structure and formula of the material, and his research was interrupted by years of war, following Croatia's split from Yugoslavia. excerpts from http://www.rexresearch.com/djurek/djurek.htm http://www.rexresearch.com/djurek/djurek.htm
CommanderData 3y ago
They can still recover from this reputationally very easily assuming egos are not in the way. Accept it happened and make amends and make those things very public and move forward to making an official announcement together with the so called 'rogue' author (in my opinion he did the world a favour).
DoctorOetker 3y ago
A funny theory, especially since this good samaritan only prematurely published after his connection to the research was severed.
constantcrying 3y ago
I think there are multiple big reasons they didn't publish sooner. It is pretty clear that they were convinced, but had insufficient evidence to convince others. Additionally there had recently been a sensational fraud in their field so journals would have been extremely sceptical. It seems to me they were just in the process of constructing a convincing paper, which included convincing tests and could have been acompanied by sending out samples to independent labs. Then they were essentially forced to put out what they had, which made their claims even more unconvincing.
- jjallen 3y ago
  Evidently they did have sufficient evidence. With such a big potential payout of such a world changing material, others have invested a few days of time into verifying their rushed paper and indeed their weak evidence was enough. Again, with a payout so big and ease of replication fairly low, the evidence doesn’t even have to be that convincing.
- reacharavindh 3y ago
  An argument probably could be made for normal run of the mill improvements and confirmations that make the scientific state of the art move inch-by-inch versus such ground breaking discoveries that has the potential to help the world to such a big degree. They could very well write their finding in a way that we claim we discovered that this works, these features work, but we suspect these may also work, and XYZ needs to be tested further and those are reserved for future work either they themselves are doing are can be sped up by others participating. They still get the claim as the pioneers for the discovery(rightly so), and still accelerate the rate of practicality. The only problem would be if they worded it in a sensational way without evidence to backup their claims like almost all battery tech seems to be these days "we discovered a solid state battery that will change the world, make EVs, flying planes, ships, trucks and remote control toys orders of magnitude cheaper, faster, safer blah blah ** once we figure out how to get it working in real world conditions and test it for real. We were talking about possibilities extrapolated from our little theoretical progress." I still believe the scientific community is smart and moral to accept statements held true by evidence. Scoffs are reserved for hyperbolic claims. To make my argument, see the recent paper on achieving energy positive nuclear fusion - the authors didnt wait until they could achieve Nett energy positive condition (where total energy to the system is lower than what was produced). They published when they achieved energy to the reaction < energy output from the reaction which was a big deal in itself eventhough the practical goal would be achieved in future by building upon this..
BiteCode_dev 3y ago
We will never know, but maybe they receive some governmental pressure to never publish and pretend the research lead nowhere so that their country only gets the benefit. But the rogue scientist wanted to share it with the entire world. It would make for a nice movie.
numbsafari 3y ago
One, slightly more cynical, theory is that the rogue employee's motivation was to push the research out there in order to create an opportunity for them to engage in their own research or get funding to do that research by making public what they may otherwise have not be authorized to make public. It'll be interesting to see if there are any threats over an NDA or trade secret violations that come out of the original, premature, publication. Everyone's assuming it's about the Nobel, but it is much more likely it's about far more lucrative goals.
- toolz 3y ago
  I think an interesting outlook on these situations is that if you believe someone has the right values (e.g. earning money and earning respect from peers) then greed towards those values is a nobel pursuit. If society can't make greed go away then maybe it's better to celebrate human nature and contextualize/guide it into being pro-social.
omgJustTest 3y ago
Many of the best and great humans are lost to history without a name. Fiat lux!
SergeAx 3y ago
No, they are not. The only consequence of that action was a worldwide mess of people trying to reproduce the experiment or disavow it. Original authors needed a bit more time to polish their discovery, write solid paper with undeniable proofs and maybe even prepare handout samples.

King-Aaron 3y ago

Have you got any back-story on that? I only saw that their team posted it to arxiv, hadn't heard the other drama

jjallen 3y ago
A former employee was the first to publish a paper with only three authors. I am surprised you haven't heard about this. Then a few hours later a paper was published with six authors (without one of the original three authors), ostensibly by the core team that has been working on this. There should be much more detail on the Internet if you search for it.
- wetmore 3y ago
  I also hadn't heard about this for what it's worth.
  - cthalupa 3y ago
    It's one of the reasons people were thinking this might not be a fraud. Nobel prizes are capped to 3 people, and the speculation is that the rogue person published early to try and ensure they were one of the people that received it. No reason for infighting like that if you know it's a hoax.
    - Iulioh 3y ago
      I even wondered about that, is ever a thing? Like saying "SORRY, FIRST" to the nobel committee?
    - oldgradstudent 3y ago
      > No reason for infighting like that if you know it's a hoax. There was plenty of bitter infighting over credit during the 1989 cold fusion fiasco. Knowing it's not a hoax does not mean it is true. As always, only reproduction attempts matter.
      - cthalupa 3y ago
        I never said it was true. Just that it's some evidence against it being a fraud.
- suby 3y ago
  Notably, the missing author from the second paper is the rogue employee who published the first paper. The order of the first two authors is the same for both papers.
  - acters 3y ago
    earlier in the week, someone posted that the person who posted the paper early is someone who wanted to fund the project, but the researchers didn't want to include him. So he took as much data as he could collect and posted it publicly with the addition of his name. He is not a researcher or scientist for the team.
belter 3y ago
See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36953050 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36953050
- King-Aaron 3y ago
  Fascinating, thank you
httpz 3y ago
In the early 90s, Prof. Choi theorized a new way of creating a room temperature superconductor but it wasn't really accepted by the mainstream. Supposedly, in 1999, two researchers in Choi's lab, Lee and Kim (hence LK), created the first sample of LK-99. They weren't able to reliably replicate nor were they able to fully explain the theory. In 2017, as a dying wish, Choi asked Lee and Kim to continue on with the LK-99 research but asked to not publish it until they understand the theory behind it. They founded a lab and collaborated with other scientists in the field and Kwon was one of them. 4 months ago, Kwon left the lab and two weeks ago Kwon leaked the paper. The paper Kwon leaked only listed Lee, Kim and Kwon as the authors and excluded other collaborators. Some suspect Kwon excluded the other collaborators because Nobel prize can only be awarded to three people at most. A few days after the leak, Lee & Kim hastily published a paper with four more authors but not Kwon. https://namu.wiki/w/LK-99/%EC%A0%84%EA%B0%9C https://namu.wiki/w/LK-99/%EC%A0%84%EA%B0%9C

wcerfgba 3y ago

Exactly, the 99 stands for 1999, so potentially this material has existed for over 20 years and we could have started testing and replication on a much wider scale a decade ago. What benefit have we gained by disseminating this research so slowly?

ssl232 3y ago
I don't know if this is true or not, but I read something suggesting they produced it in 1999 as a side product of something else but didn't start to examine its properties properly until a handful of years ago.
marmakoide 3y ago
It might be that the process to make LK99, produces a fraction of the Good Stuff, which went under the radar until recently. It would not have been the first time. If it is confirmed with the proper methodology ... right now it's too early to build castles on LK99.
Iulioh 3y ago
This reminds me of an Asimov novel (don't remember the name) In this universe there are long life humans that don't really collaborate with other humans (like a single person, not a group of quasi immortal humans) in the scientific field to have all the credit because who cares if you take 200 years for a discovery if the glory is all yours
- mousetree 3y ago
  Maybe The Naked Sun or one of the books in that series? It’s been years since I read it but I remember there being some motif about people not interacting physically and living a long time.
  - oblio 3y ago
    https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Solaria
- 3y ago

pcrh 3y ago

There's apparently a patent published in 2020. It surprises me that it never gained attention. edit: KR20210062550A - Mehtod of manufacturing ceramic composite with low resistance including superconductors and the composite thereof - https://patents.google.com/patent/KR20210062550A/en https://patents.google.com/patent/KR20210062550A/en

BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
people will claim all kinds of crazy, implausible shit in patents. you would go insane trying to draw conclusions from the set of applications sent to patent offices as a whole, it would be impossible to differentiate what is legitimately worth paying attention to.
- fennecfoxy 3y ago
  I hate that the patent system went from engineers patenting a working, proven idea to business a-holes patenting an "idea" then sitting on their butts waiting for an engineer somewhere to prove the idea so that they can raise their hand and say "I have the patent on that". The modern patent system is despicable.
  - BaculumMeumEst 3y ago
    There are actually provisions that are supposed to prevent that. It's called the enablement requirement. You cannot claim an invention that you don't know how to make. But in practice, it turns out to be easy to argue around that; there are so many non-experts involved in the process. So here we are.
imdsm 3y ago
Imagine if human progress had taken a wrong turn in 2020 all becomes of a typo
- lovemenot 3y ago
  ... all because of ... ?

jjallen 3y ago

I'd like to add that if this claim of having replicated the material with the reportedly poor description of how to do so is true then it really isn't that hard to replicate. I am surprised they haven't published a paper by now. And this suggests that they were conflicted for some reason about publishing, likely commercially so (as evidenced about the patent). Maybe they were trying to create a product with it that they could sell before others could replicate the material. So the rogue employee does absolutely deserve credit for bringing this thing into the world and humanity should not stigmatize them for doing so; perhaps we should do exactly the opposite.

Iulioh 3y ago
>reportedly poor description of how to do so Isn't it false? I have read that the description is pretty extensive, just the yelds are really bad because the production method is 1) hard and 2) inconsistent? So the description is good but hard to replicate
a-user-you-like 3y ago
> and humanity should not stigmatize them for doing so If he really did it for all mankind then give him a huge prize

m463 3y ago

Wait, how did co-discoverer a few days ago become rogue former employee today?

jjallen 3y ago
Supposedly he worked there until four months ago. I am just repeating stuff I read on the Internet and I don't know that we know all of the facts just yet FYI.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
krisoft 3y ago
It is not a contradiction. One can be both. The alegation is that the person in question worked with them on the research, and they published it on arxiv without the permission of the others. Thus they can be a co-discoverer and also rogue former employee.
anonylizard 3y ago
There's 3 main parties to LK99. L&K, are two PHDs taught by their now dead former professor. Their research into LK-99 is inherited from their former professor but they lacked funding, hence it was a hobby project for a long time, and they needed funding to work on it full time. The Korean professor: A professor who started taking interest and sponsoring the project for the last few years. However, he likely didn't participate directly in the research much. The American professor (Ethnically Korean): A professor who was brought in rather recently (Maybe last 1-2 years?), to help bring credibility to the team. He is probably the one with the expertise to perform measurement and ascertain that it is a superconductor. The Korean professor got kicked out from the team for unknown reasons. This was evidenced in the April paper published in Korea, which lacked the Korean professor's name. Quantum center also removed him from the website. 4 months later, he was back with a vengeance, and published the paper, with only him, and L&K on it (ie, the 3 man paper). The Korean professor possesses no sample, and also lacks the original data for LK-99. A day later, the american professor hastily rushed out another paper (The 6-man paper), with L&K, himself, and 3 irrelevant lab assistants. Since the earlier Korean paper in April got 0 attention and was treated like a typical troll paper. They probably assumed posting on arxiv was just good material for later legal battles, but they could otherwise continue happily researching and patenting their material. However, interest in LK-99 exploded like a nuke, because the first signal for credibility: That two professors were in a bitter battle over authorship, did not escape people's eyes. 2 days later, the Korean professor had a presentation at a Korean conference, but attendees were disappointed by his data and lack of samples (Prediction markets hit a low of 15% at this point). However, the American professor took control of media communications, and quickly dissociated with the Korean professor, yet he completely stood by the claims of LK-99. Now the American professor has talked to numerous Korean media and directly sent an exclusive video to NYT. Its interesting why L&K chose the American professor over the Korean one. Needless to say, if this works out, the interpersonal saga will end up in a Netflix documentary, and probably many court cases. I should also note that the nobel prize is likely a secondary concern for the group. They aren't in a comfortable academic position where money is only a bonus. They were struggling PHDs for a long time. Nobel prize money is too little, and will come way too late to make a difference for their lives. L&K and the American professor are likely trying to maximize the value of their patents and know how to sell to investors, rather than to make public verification ASAP, which would be optimizing for a nobel prize.

highwaylights 3y ago

> that this thing needs to see the light of day so it can start to benefit humanity. .. by way of Back to the Future hoverboards.

kome 3y ago

Young-Wan Kwon's legacy will undoubtedly be that of the hero of LK99. There is a lingering thought that had this discovery been made in the US, it might have been hidden indefinitely by the military-industrial complex, never to see the light of day.

baq 3y ago

> The Croatian scientists say that current will flow effortlessly through their material, a mixture of lead carbonate and lead and silver oxides, at up to about 30 °C. [...] > Danijel Djurek, a physicist at A. Volta Applied Ceramics in Zagreb, Croatia, claims that he discovered his superconducting ceramic mixture in the late 1980s. But he was unable to pin down the structure and formula of the material, and his research was interrupted by years of war, following Croatia's split from Yugoslavia. excerpts from http://www.rexresearch.com/djurek/djurek.htm http://www.rexresearch.com/djurek/djurek.htm

CommanderData 3y ago

They can still recover from this reputationally very easily assuming egos are not in the way. Accept it happened and make amends and make those things very public and move forward to making an official announcement together with the so called 'rogue' author (in my opinion he did the world a favour).

DoctorOetker 3y ago

A funny theory, especially since this good samaritan only prematurely published after his connection to the research was severed.

constantcrying 3y ago

I think there are multiple big reasons they didn't publish sooner. It is pretty clear that they were convinced, but had insufficient evidence to convince others. Additionally there had recently been a sensational fraud in their field so journals would have been extremely sceptical. It seems to me they were just in the process of constructing a convincing paper, which included convincing tests and could have been acompanied by sending out samples to independent labs. Then they were essentially forced to put out what they had, which made their claims even more unconvincing.

jjallen 3y ago
Evidently they did have sufficient evidence. With such a big potential payout of such a world changing material, others have invested a few days of time into verifying their rushed paper and indeed their weak evidence was enough. Again, with a payout so big and ease of replication fairly low, the evidence doesn’t even have to be that convincing.
reacharavindh 3y ago
An argument probably could be made for normal run of the mill improvements and confirmations that make the scientific state of the art move inch-by-inch versus such ground breaking discoveries that has the potential to help the world to such a big degree. They could very well write their finding in a way that we claim we discovered that this works, these features work, but we suspect these may also work, and XYZ needs to be tested further and those are reserved for future work either they themselves are doing are can be sped up by others participating. They still get the claim as the pioneers for the discovery(rightly so), and still accelerate the rate of practicality. The only problem would be if they worded it in a sensational way without evidence to backup their claims like almost all battery tech seems to be these days "we discovered a solid state battery that will change the world, make EVs, flying planes, ships, trucks and remote control toys orders of magnitude cheaper, faster, safer blah blah ** once we figure out how to get it working in real world conditions and test it for real. We were talking about possibilities extrapolated from our little theoretical progress." I still believe the scientific community is smart and moral to accept statements held true by evidence. Scoffs are reserved for hyperbolic claims. To make my argument, see the recent paper on achieving energy positive nuclear fusion - the authors didnt wait until they could achieve Nett energy positive condition (where total energy to the system is lower than what was produced). They published when they achieved energy to the reaction < energy output from the reaction which was a big deal in itself eventhough the practical goal would be achieved in future by building upon this..

BiteCode_dev 3y ago

We will never know, but maybe they receive some governmental pressure to never publish and pretend the research lead nowhere so that their country only gets the benefit. But the rogue scientist wanted to share it with the entire world. It would make for a nice movie.

numbsafari 3y ago

One, slightly more cynical, theory is that the rogue employee's motivation was to push the research out there in order to create an opportunity for them to engage in their own research or get funding to do that research by making public what they may otherwise have not be authorized to make public. It'll be interesting to see if there are any threats over an NDA or trade secret violations that come out of the original, premature, publication. Everyone's assuming it's about the Nobel, but it is much more likely it's about far more lucrative goals.

toolz 3y ago
I think an interesting outlook on these situations is that if you believe someone has the right values (e.g. earning money and earning respect from peers) then greed towards those values is a nobel pursuit. If society can't make greed go away then maybe it's better to celebrate human nature and contextualize/guide it into being pro-social.

omgJustTest 3y ago

Many of the best and great humans are lost to history without a name. Fiat lux!

SergeAx 3y ago

No, they are not. The only consequence of that action was a worldwide mess of people trying to reproduce the experiment or disavow it. Original authors needed a bit more time to polish their discovery, write solid paper with undeniable proofs and maybe even prepare handout samples.