• CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Big doubt. People have self-published shit like this a lot over the past decade or two. Usually it turns out to be a measurement error if it goes anywhere at all. Post again when this is peer-reviewed.

    Edit: A month on, here’s Nature’s autopsy. The big question for me is why this one went viral when most USOs just fade into obscurity.

    • RickRussell_CA@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      If would be one hell of an error, if so, to get measurements across several different properties and temperature ranges that were all consistent with superconductivity.

      But even if true, we can make lots of things in very small quantities in laboratories that are far too expensive for practical manufacture. That’s where engineering will come in.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        0·
        1 year ago

        If would be one hell of an error, if so, to get measurements across several different properties and temperature ranges that were all consistent with superconductivity.

        You’re right, maybe it’s fraud, at least partly.

        I understand it’s very hard to measure the conductivity of a microscopic crystal attached to other different crystals, which is why a lot of less-than-solid claims about high-temperature superconductors get made.

          • jarfil@beehaw.org
            0·
            1 year ago

            At first sight, it looks fake:

            • A levitating superconductor locks into place onto the magnetic lines, it shouldn’t be bouncing up and down like that while touching the magnet with one side.
            • Pyrolytic carbon can levitate on a magnetic pole grid at ambient temperature and pressure, while magnetic poles can be “printed” onto a single magnet slab, giving the illusion of superconductive levitation where there is none.
            • At one point in the video the piece of material falls down completely to the magnet, then it bounces back up when pushed to another point, which looks less consistent with superconductive levitation, and more with a prepared trick magnet.
            • FaceDeer@kbin.social
              0·
              1 year ago

              As I said, it could be faked. But that fakery would involve a very deliberate premeditated fraud and when it is found out (as it will be in short order with something this extreme) the three researchers involved in this would be completely ruined. What are they gaining out of this that would be worth it?

              Also, if they’re rigging up a complete fake, why would they half-ass it? If your first take has the fake superconductor fall down why not delete that one and do another take where it doesn’t?

              I’m not saying this video is proof, I’m saying that this is not some Em-drive situation where the results are so fine and fiddly that it’s only barely peeking through the data and it could be a result of tiny errors and wishing really hard. The comment I was responding to was talking about how difficult it is to measure the properties of microscopic crystals and I was pointing out that this is a big ol’ chunk of stuff being poked around with the tip of a finger and hovering millimeters over a magnet. This is going to be straightforward to verify.

              Edit: Found the companion article that’s specifically about the levitating sample.

              • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
                2·
                1 year ago

                Welp, here’s Nature delivering the verdict. Pretty much on the schedule I expected, and here’s the update I’d promised myself I’d do.

                LK-99’s amazing properties are Cu2S’s amazing properties. It’s a chunk of stuff with embedded copper sulphide. Like I said, it’s hard to verify the properties of one material mixed in with other materials, and in this case they didn’t even try very hard.

                Here the microscopic crystals were the impurities not the “superconductor”, but it’s the same issue.

                • FaceDeer@kbin.social
                  2·
                  1 year ago

                  Sadly, yeah, this appears to be a solid case against LK-99.

                  But this is all I ever wanted. This is not validation for all the negative-nellies who were instantly dumping all over the possibility that LK-99 could have been superconductive before these further tests were done. When these sorts of apparent breakthroughs are made the proper response is to do as these people publishing in Nature did - take it seriously enough to actually check it out. That’s the only way to avoid missing out on the actual breakthroughs.