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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 stude

by 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).

by yorwba 3y ago

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).