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Doug Natelson at Nanoscale Views is a physicist who works with nano stuff, and I expected him to comment[1] on this. Basically he said it looks interesting but

Doug Natelson at Nanoscale Views is a physicist who works with nano stuff, and I expected him to comment[1] on this. Basically he said it looks interesting but isn't really proof. Which fits with my viewpoint, where I discount anything reported in Technology Review or that starts with "MIT/Harvard Scientists". When it's real, it'll be in Nature. [1] http://nanoscale.blogspot.com/2012/09/room-temperature-superconductivity.html http://nanoscale.blogspot.com/2012/09/room-temperature-super...

sp332 14y ago
It was published in Advanced Materials, a peer-reviewed journal. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201202219/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201202219/ab... Here's the pre-print PDF http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.1938v1 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.1938v1
- shardling 14y ago
  Thanks for the article link; but in the future please consider linking to the main arxiv page[1], not a specific PDF. The direct link will become outdated if a new version of the paper is uploaded; also, the main page will contain a lot of useful data about the publication (citations/etc), will include the abstract in the page, and give a choice of what format you read it in. 1. http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1938 http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1938
- nirvana 14y ago
  Hacker News is "peer reviewed", but that doesn't mean every top voted story is correct. I worked in a major lab in this exact area (high temperature superconductivity) and had papers published in much more prestigious journals, and getting published was often a question of politics more than science- if your results undermine a theory that one of your "peers" built his career on, you may not be getting published in that journal, no matter how scientifically correct. And back in those days things were a lot less political than they are now. Don't presume that "peer review" means anything. It really doesn't. It doesn't mean the peers have reproduced the results, and it doesn't mean the peers are even up to speed specifically enough to be able to authoritatively say the results are correct. It is about as equivalent as the fact-checkers at the New York Times, and you know how often they print retractions. At the time, quality was slipping too and it was getting more political. I'm skeptical about this claim, but it has been awhile since I worked in that area, so I won't say either way. But don't take "peer review" as meaning anything significant. It's like saying Obama is telling the truth because democratic "truth squads" blessed his opinion.
  - sp332 14y ago
    Don't presume that "peer review" means anything. It really doesn't. It doesn't mean the peers have reproduced the results, and it doesn't mean the peers are even up to speed specifically enough to be able to authoritatively say the results are correct. I know what peer review means, and I know that it's none of those things. But getting a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal means you passed a sniff test, which is better than being written up in your Alma Mater's pop-news magazine.
  - chmike 14y ago
    Great to hear someone else sharing the idea recognizing that our scientific publication system (aka blessing) is as broken as the patent system.

sp332 14y ago

It was published in Advanced Materials, a peer-reviewed journal. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201202219/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201202219/ab... Here's the pre-print PDF http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.1938v1 http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.1938v1

shardling 14y ago
Thanks for the article link; but in the future please consider linking to the main arxiv page[1], not a specific PDF. The direct link will become outdated if a new version of the paper is uploaded; also, the main page will contain a lot of useful data about the publication (citations/etc), will include the abstract in the page, and give a choice of what format you read it in. 1. http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1938 http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.1938
nirvana 14y ago
Hacker News is "peer reviewed", but that doesn't mean every top voted story is correct. I worked in a major lab in this exact area (high temperature superconductivity) and had papers published in much more prestigious journals, and getting published was often a question of politics more than science- if your results undermine a theory that one of your "peers" built his career on, you may not be getting published in that journal, no matter how scientifically correct. And back in those days things were a lot less political than they are now. Don't presume that "peer review" means anything. It really doesn't. It doesn't mean the peers have reproduced the results, and it doesn't mean the peers are even up to speed specifically enough to be able to authoritatively say the results are correct. It is about as equivalent as the fact-checkers at the New York Times, and you know how often they print retractions. At the time, quality was slipping too and it was getting more political. I'm skeptical about this claim, but it has been awhile since I worked in that area, so I won't say either way. But don't take "peer review" as meaning anything significant. It's like saying Obama is telling the truth because democratic "truth squads" blessed his opinion.
- sp332 14y ago
  Don't presume that "peer review" means anything. It really doesn't. It doesn't mean the peers have reproduced the results, and it doesn't mean the peers are even up to speed specifically enough to be able to authoritatively say the results are correct. I know what peer review means, and I know that it's none of those things. But getting a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal means you passed a sniff test, which is better than being written up in your Alma Mater's pop-news magazine.
- chmike 14y ago
  Great to hear someone else sharing the idea recognizing that our scientific publication system (aka blessing) is as broken as the patent system.