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This is LK-99 derived? Now I'm even less interested. Because if you believe this one, you need to believe that despite LK-99 being bogus, that somehow, trying t
by gwern 3y ago
This is LK-99 derived? Now I'm even less interested. Because if you believe this one, you need to believe that despite LK-99 being bogus, that somehow, trying to make a new LK-99 variant was lucky enough to find the one compound out of countless attempts that winds up working - as opposed to coming out of a completely different, still viable, line of research. Stranger things have happened in the history of science & technology... but not that many.
- fouc 3y agodid you catch the part about sulfur? i.e. LK-99 w/ sulfur contamination was originally blamed for the magnetism. This new variant is explicitly sulfur-based.
- sanxiyn 3y agoYes this is LK-99 derived. (See the paper's reference 4 and 5.) Eh, of course it is unlikely LK-99 is bogus and this one is not, but then the correct conclusion to draw is that LK-99 is not bogus?
- gus_massa 3y agoPerhaps LK-99 is bogus, and they were triying to reproduce the result, they failed succesfully and they got another similar compound that is not bogus.
- gfodor 3y agoThat’s possible but far less likely than the alternative explanation that either this is bunk too or LK-99 contained signal that people dismissed due to a hole in our methodology.
- mort96 3y agoWait how are all the flaws in the paper and all the failed reproductions of LK-99 and all the signs that LK-99 is just diamagnetism compatible with LK-99 being a proper superconductor?
- Accujack 3y agoThe thing is.... all the failed reproductions of LK-99 were based on the leaked version of the paper, which according to the authors is missing some information/steps for production. They said they would publish the complete/final version of the paper in 2024, waiting to see that.
- bandyaboot 3y agoThis would be a difficult to believe coincidence if diamagnetism and superconductivity were unrelated physical properties, but they are not.
- scythe 3y agoThe hard part is that people have already tried really hard to make and measure a superconductor in the LK-99 system, and these researchers have once again gotten close, but not succeeded. There is some precedent for this: one of the highest-temperature superconductors is two-dimensional iron selenide supported on strontium titanate, which superconducts at 100 K, while the bulk iron selenide superconductivity is a measly 8 K at normal pressure (38 K under pressure). At this point, the most plausible way that superconductivity could be occurring in the LK-99 system is if it's in a metastable or nanostructured (possibly two-dimensional) phase that doesn't like to or can't exist as a uniform bulk material.
- axelcontoli 3y agoThat scenario, if true, would surpass any other in the history of science. It's akin to the Monty Hall problem, but with a trillion doors, where you don't change your choice after all but two are shown not to have the superconductor. So obviously if true there's a better explanation of why those early experiments failed.
- nekoashide 3y agoI stop at "lead apatite" and immediately lose intrest when reading these articles.