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All I see from US academics on Twitter are debates about this and that. Borderline annoying. This is the first result from mighty US capitalist machine meanwhil

by iamshs 3y ago

All I see from US academics on Twitter are debates about this and that. Borderline annoying. This is the first result from mighty US capitalist machine meanwhile 3 Chinese labs have published pre prints and Russian replicated it in her kitchen.

anonylizard 3y ago
This, its utterly shameful. Hot takes here, hot takes there, skepticism here, tell people to calm down there. Yet not a single replication! China has gone through multiple failed and successful replications so far. And the first US replication is from an amateur. If LK-99 works out, expect some congressmen to use this as a bludgeoning tool against the state of US public science.
- iamshs 3y ago
  They couldn't even source Phosphorus!
- yorwba 3y ago
  Nanjing University physics professor Wen Haihu said in an interview with The Paper that the news was extremely likely to be false and they only assigned a student to it because many groups internationally were working on replications https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_24024641 https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_24024641 "A researcher from the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) declined to comment on LK-99, telling the Post that even taking the issue seriously would be ridiculous." https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3229778/could-chinese-teams-viral-lk-99-video-offer-clue-superconductor-holy-grail-physicists https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3229778/coul... (It's unclear to me whether this was before or after the HUST team published their video.) I don't think it's so much "China good at science, everyone else shamefully bad," but that some institutions (including in China) are more risk-averse, because labs who're already working on something they expect to succeed are less likely to benefit from dropping it to try something unproven.
  - TylerE 3y ago
    Not go all conspiracy, but isn’t that also pretty much the playbook you’d run if you were trying to discredit it, to get as much of a jump on the rest of the world as possible? The Chinese government is not exactly known for playing fair.
    - yorwba 3y ago
      That requires a government so competent they immediately notice the significance of a claimed breakthrough by a foreign lab and coordinate an information campaign where their leading scientists act all skeptical just like leading scientists in other countries, denying rumours that the Academy of Sciences is working on a replication etc., ... but completely fail to act on similar rumours sparked at the same time by screenshots of a HUST professor getting all excited about his university's replication work in a group chat. Usually, when the Chinese government is confronted with an unexpected development they want to suppress, the opposite happens: official spokespeople clam up, nobody has a statement ready, related keywords get censored more or less effectively on social media, until an official narrative is revealed that doesn't withstand further scrutiny but survives anyway because such scrutiny is censored as well. So no, it's pretty much not the playbook they'd run if they were trying to discredit it.
      - cryptonector 3y ago
        Individual lab heads might do this sua sponte. Think: while everyone else is busy playing replication games you can work on reliably making LK-99 and beat everyone else to the punch on the more valuable patents and engineering glory.
  - cryptonector 3y ago
    The other thing is that even if LK-99 is finally conclusively shown to be a room temp & ambient pressure SC, there will be lots of important challenges to work on surrounding LK-99, so not being the first to replicate is no tragedy: - challenges in practical and reliable manufacturing of LK-99 - challenges in engineering w/ LK-99 - challenges in finding better materials than LK-99 using similar approaches If I were in a position where I could devote funding and researcher and lab time into LK-99 research, I might well quietly let others to do the replication work while having my team quietly research practical manufacturing of LK-99 so that we could a) beat everyone else to the punch on practical and reliable manufacturing, b) get the patents for (a).
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > If LK-99 works out, expect some congressmen to use this as a bludgeoning tool against the state of US public science. I hope for the same here in Germany. It's way past time we actually deal with the sorry state of science funding and academia in general across the Western world.
  - ncann 3y ago
    Yeah and it's not just the US but also France/UK/Germany/Canada, all the western countries usually held in high regards for science, the lack of enthusiasm (for lack of a better word) is rather disappointing. I don't think I've seen a single university lab in these countries announced "hey we're trying to replicate this as well".
    - mschuster91 3y ago
      They don't have the funds to do so any more. Everything is just project based grants, which often enough aren't even enough to run a project to completion. And professors have to chase grants and do other bullshit paperwork in an awful lot of their time.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      Given the international reach of the US' War on Drugs, is red phosphorus also controlled in other nations? Being denied access to the precursors needed makes replication far harder.
- kijin 3y ago
  It's the same in Korea where the research originated. A bunch of professors belonging to a hastily formed academic committee are trying to monopolize the public debate, quibbling about errors in the arxiv paper and demanding that Lee & Kim turn over samples of LK-99 because the big-name professors are obviously too busy to make their own. It seems that their first priority is to avoid a repeat of the Hwang scandal than to touch any novel research.
  - username332211 3y ago
    Any time the material exhibits a properties inconsistent with superconductors, the to-go explanation is that it's supposedly extremely difficult to manufacture. Not to mention, the original instructions include stuff like "The sealed tube containing the mixed powder was heated in a furnace at 925°C for 5-20 hours." which sounds a tad bit imprecise. Don't you think in those conditions it's at least a little bit reasonable to demand samples?
    - zarzavat 3y ago
      They’ve said they will provide samples after peer review. Which seems fair doesn’t it? How can they complete their paper and peer review without the samples? And if the samples get damaged they will be regret ever handing them over. If you were in the same situation you’d make the same decision. I and everybody else would love them to hand over the samples for external testing, but it’s their samples so they can do whatever they want with it, and the rest of the world just has to pound lanarkite while we wait.
      - username332211 3y ago
        I assume they have more than one sample, don't you? Hopefully, if they had only one, they'd say that explicitly on one of their papers.
      - brakedam 3y ago
        But I heard that in the interview, Dr. Kim said they have various samples that have different magnetization properties. It doesn’t make sense that they have only a few samples, ironically. I’m sorry, but this makes me think that they are trying to move the public some other way.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  To be fair, no one in the us has a grant to replicate something that came out this week. Its also the academic summer. A good amount of PIs are probably nowhere near their labs on vacation currently.
  - _jal 3y ago
    > To be fair, no one in the us has a grant to replicate something that came out this week And yet researchers in other countries managed to find the money this week. That would seem to point to a real relative weakness that's worth thinking about. Whether it is the result of gatekeeping, bureaucracy, academic squabbling, or something else, a cranky (and hilarious) Russian did better, faster work in her kitchen. Even putting aside professional scientific dysfunction, that seems to indicate a strategic cranky kitchen chemist gap.
    - peteradio 3y ago
      Seems kind of stupid to do chemistry in your kitchen. What exactly is the rush here to come out with results right now?!
      - _jal 3y ago
        > What exactly is the rush here to come out with results right now?! Well, the work is happening right now. You seem to want to make it sound like impatient kids being unreasonable or something, which is a ridiculous read. It is more a matter institutions becoming irrelevant because they literally can't keep up with their peers. Which brings me back to, > Seems kind of stupid to do chemistry in your kitchen. When the institutions in your country become incompetent, that's what you're left with.
        peteradio 3y ago
        Hmm I'm not convinced that the establishment is sitting it out. Isn't it more likely that they are working the conservative process of registering experimental intent and planning only then to be followed by the experiment and only then to be followed by press release? If a bunch of amateurs can spook the old guys into violating well established procedure then id be pretty concerned about their competence.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  > gone through multiple failed and successful replications so far The "successful" replications are partial. No one knows how to make a large enough sample of LK-99 that can be tested to definitely show superconductivity (or not) at room temp and ambient pressure. IMO the most bullish research done yet is the theoretical research.
foobarian 3y ago
Naturalize the Russian, problem solved.
- iamshs 3y ago
  Seeing her tweets, I doubt she wants to exercise this option.
  - lucubratory 3y ago
    Yes, I laughed when I saw that comment. I believe she would be denied entry to the US based on the questions that screen out communists, although because the particular question mentions a party and I don't believe she's a CPRF member it's possible it wouldn't apply. Regardless, not a good fit on either end of the relationship.
    - justsomehnguy 3y ago
      I'm more amused by 'grab anyone we want' stance, along with 'everyone wants to be the US citizen'. Imagine some Chinese would said that about some US scientist.
nemo44x 3y ago
Yes, but our ESG scores are impeccable.

by iamshs 3y ago

anonylizard 3y ago

This, its utterly shameful. Hot takes here, hot takes there, skepticism here, tell people to calm down there. Yet not a single replication! China has gone through multiple failed and successful replications so far. And the first US replication is from an amateur. If LK-99 works out, expect some congressmen to use this as a bludgeoning tool against the state of US public science.

iamshs 3y ago
They couldn't even source Phosphorus!
yorwba 3y ago
Nanjing University physics professor Wen Haihu said in an interview with The Paper that the news was extremely likely to be false and they only assigned a student to it because many groups internationally were working on replications https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_24024641 https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_24024641 "A researcher from the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) declined to comment on LK-99, telling the Post that even taking the issue seriously would be ridiculous." https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3229778/could-chinese-teams-viral-lk-99-video-offer-clue-superconductor-holy-grail-physicists https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3229778/coul... (It's unclear to me whether this was before or after the HUST team published their video.) I don't think it's so much "China good at science, everyone else shamefully bad," but that some institutions (including in China) are more risk-averse, because labs who're already working on something they expect to succeed are less likely to benefit from dropping it to try something unproven.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Not go all conspiracy, but isn’t that also pretty much the playbook you’d run if you were trying to discredit it, to get as much of a jump on the rest of the world as possible? The Chinese government is not exactly known for playing fair.
  - yorwba 3y ago
    That requires a government so competent they immediately notice the significance of a claimed breakthrough by a foreign lab and coordinate an information campaign where their leading scientists act all skeptical just like leading scientists in other countries, denying rumours that the Academy of Sciences is working on a replication etc., ... but completely fail to act on similar rumours sparked at the same time by screenshots of a HUST professor getting all excited about his university's replication work in a group chat. Usually, when the Chinese government is confronted with an unexpected development they want to suppress, the opposite happens: official spokespeople clam up, nobody has a statement ready, related keywords get censored more or less effectively on social media, until an official narrative is revealed that doesn't withstand further scrutiny but survives anyway because such scrutiny is censored as well. So no, it's pretty much not the playbook they'd run if they were trying to discredit it.
    - cryptonector 3y ago
      Individual lab heads might do this sua sponte. Think: while everyone else is busy playing replication games you can work on reliably making LK-99 and beat everyone else to the punch on the more valuable patents and engineering glory.
- cryptonector 3y ago
  The other thing is that even if LK-99 is finally conclusively shown to be a room temp & ambient pressure SC, there will be lots of important challenges to work on surrounding LK-99, so not being the first to replicate is no tragedy: - challenges in practical and reliable manufacturing of LK-99 - challenges in engineering w/ LK-99 - challenges in finding better materials than LK-99 using similar approaches If I were in a position where I could devote funding and researcher and lab time into LK-99 research, I might well quietly let others to do the replication work while having my team quietly research practical manufacturing of LK-99 so that we could a) beat everyone else to the punch on practical and reliable manufacturing, b) get the patents for (a).
mschuster91 3y ago
> If LK-99 works out, expect some congressmen to use this as a bludgeoning tool against the state of US public science. I hope for the same here in Germany. It's way past time we actually deal with the sorry state of science funding and academia in general across the Western world.
- ncann 3y ago
  Yeah and it's not just the US but also France/UK/Germany/Canada, all the western countries usually held in high regards for science, the lack of enthusiasm (for lack of a better word) is rather disappointing. I don't think I've seen a single university lab in these countries announced "hey we're trying to replicate this as well".
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    They don't have the funds to do so any more. Everything is just project based grants, which often enough aren't even enough to run a project to completion. And professors have to chase grants and do other bullshit paperwork in an awful lot of their time.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Given the international reach of the US' War on Drugs, is red phosphorus also controlled in other nations? Being denied access to the precursors needed makes replication far harder.
kijin 3y ago
It's the same in Korea where the research originated. A bunch of professors belonging to a hastily formed academic committee are trying to monopolize the public debate, quibbling about errors in the arxiv paper and demanding that Lee & Kim turn over samples of LK-99 because the big-name professors are obviously too busy to make their own. It seems that their first priority is to avoid a repeat of the Hwang scandal than to touch any novel research.
- username332211 3y ago
  Any time the material exhibits a properties inconsistent with superconductors, the to-go explanation is that it's supposedly extremely difficult to manufacture. Not to mention, the original instructions include stuff like "The sealed tube containing the mixed powder was heated in a furnace at 925°C for 5-20 hours." which sounds a tad bit imprecise. Don't you think in those conditions it's at least a little bit reasonable to demand samples?
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    They’ve said they will provide samples after peer review. Which seems fair doesn’t it? How can they complete their paper and peer review without the samples? And if the samples get damaged they will be regret ever handing them over. If you were in the same situation you’d make the same decision. I and everybody else would love them to hand over the samples for external testing, but it’s their samples so they can do whatever they want with it, and the rest of the world just has to pound lanarkite while we wait.
    - username332211 3y ago
      I assume they have more than one sample, don't you? Hopefully, if they had only one, they'd say that explicitly on one of their papers.
    - brakedam 3y ago
      But I heard that in the interview, Dr. Kim said they have various samples that have different magnetization properties. It doesn’t make sense that they have only a few samples, ironically. I’m sorry, but this makes me think that they are trying to move the public some other way.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
To be fair, no one in the us has a grant to replicate something that came out this week. Its also the academic summer. A good amount of PIs are probably nowhere near their labs on vacation currently.
- _jal 3y ago
  > To be fair, no one in the us has a grant to replicate something that came out this week And yet researchers in other countries managed to find the money this week. That would seem to point to a real relative weakness that's worth thinking about. Whether it is the result of gatekeeping, bureaucracy, academic squabbling, or something else, a cranky (and hilarious) Russian did better, faster work in her kitchen. Even putting aside professional scientific dysfunction, that seems to indicate a strategic cranky kitchen chemist gap.
  - peteradio 3y ago
    Seems kind of stupid to do chemistry in your kitchen. What exactly is the rush here to come out with results right now?!
    - _jal 3y ago
      > What exactly is the rush here to come out with results right now?! Well, the work is happening right now. You seem to want to make it sound like impatient kids being unreasonable or something, which is a ridiculous read. It is more a matter institutions becoming irrelevant because they literally can't keep up with their peers. Which brings me back to, > Seems kind of stupid to do chemistry in your kitchen. When the institutions in your country become incompetent, that's what you're left with.
      - peteradio 3y ago
        Hmm I'm not convinced that the establishment is sitting it out. Isn't it more likely that they are working the conservative process of registering experimental intent and planning only then to be followed by the experiment and only then to be followed by press release? If a bunch of amateurs can spook the old guys into violating well established procedure then id be pretty concerned about their competence.
cryptonector 3y ago
> gone through multiple failed and successful replications so far The "successful" replications are partial. No one knows how to make a large enough sample of LK-99 that can be tested to definitely show superconductivity (or not) at room temp and ambient pressure. IMO the most bullish research done yet is the theoretical research.

foobarian 3y ago

Naturalize the Russian, problem solved.

iamshs 3y ago
Seeing her tweets, I doubt she wants to exercise this option.
- lucubratory 3y ago
  Yes, I laughed when I saw that comment. I believe she would be denied entry to the US based on the questions that screen out communists, although because the particular question mentions a party and I don't believe she's a CPRF member it's possible it wouldn't apply. Regardless, not a good fit on either end of the relationship.
  - justsomehnguy 3y ago
    I'm more amused by 'grab anyone we want' stance, along with 'everyone wants to be the US citizen'. Imagine some Chinese would said that about some US scientist.

nemo44x 3y ago

Yes, but our ESG scores are impeccable.