[foven]

Glad to see a realistic take on HN. Endlessly frustrating to see people be like "this will be replicated in days". Yeah, sure, let every other lab just drop what they're doing, order all the reagents on express, do a thorough characterization making sure they understand the impurities and crystal phase, then perform good airtight measurements in a couple days. Crystal growth always has complications many times outside of your control - the most minor of things can cause ridiculous problems.

Especially when they admit to having phase impurities, and it's not really clear how they've gone from bulk sample to measurement sample (are they really measuring just the superconductor or the impurity phase?). Needs addressing, especially when the Cu2S phase impurity seems to have a phase transition of it's own at or around 370K (suspiciously close to where some of their Tc measurements are).

[jncfhnb]

Feels like you’re strawmanning the idea here. It’s not “every lab” it’s “at least one lab”.

Jeez I sure hope at least one lab can spare the time to bother reproducing a room temperature semiconductor claim.

[smallnamespace]

One lab is definitely not adequate.

Replication attempts don't give you an unambiguous signal, many things can go wrong.

If one lab hasn't succeeded in replicating the paper, does that mean the paper is wrong, or just that a necessary step wasn't documented clearly or followed correctly?

More labs trying to replicate give you more independent signals.

[HDThoreaun]

I mean being thorough will obviously take a long time, but if a decent number of research groups decide to drop what they're doing and attempt a replication I don't think it would take that long for one of them to at least partially succeed if the claim is true. That doesn't mean they're publishing a sister paper, but it might mean we see some tweets saying "my group synthesized LK-99 and we have reason to believe it may be a rtp superconductor"

[giarc]

>Glad to see a realistic take on HN.

From an account created 1 hour ago, claiming to have worked with the author. Take with a huge grain of salt.

[xwdv]

I would only expect these kinds of posts from a throwaway account created very recently with a single post.

Anyone with a long HN history is more likely trying to karma farm and chase clout by spinning up some bullshit. Trying to establish themselves as an authority on a trending topic.

But because a throwaway account has no past or future, it is the purest form of communication.

[airgapstopgap]

It is entirely believable that a person with substantial trace on HN and ties in the field would rather create a throwaway than post such remark under his main account.

[badman2001]

i agree re. skepticism but all I'm saying about HT Kim is that he's a real scientist with real bona fides, which I think you could find by asking anyone in my specific subfield of condensed matter physics

[11101010001100]

Yes, this is the internet.

[nemo44x]

To me the biggest mystery is why they didn't make multiple samples and send them to a few places that could verify their claims immediately. I understand that the papers were published before they really wanted to but they've also apparently have had samples for awhile it sounds like?

So assuming it's not BS (and I doubt that it is) it would lead me to believe that making the material is difficult to get right? The video they've produced uses a sample that isn't particularly elegant, to be sure.

I guess it's all conjecture at this point and healthy skepticism is warranted. A press conference would be nice.

[scarmig]

Skepticism is warranted, but apparently there's infighting in the group (only 3 people can be recipients of a Nobel Prize) and one jumped the gun to get his name out there. And also apparently fear of research espionage from the PRC (not as far-fetched as it sounds).

[badman2001]

i do not understand this either regarding the samples, usually(in my limited experience) synthesis groups have collaborators that specialize in transport or other types of measurements which I think would have added a bit of credibility, probably could have gotten a measurement of Tc, and just generally added a lot to the paper

[distortionfield]

That could very well have been their plan, they just got beat to the punch by the paper leak. Shrug. Probably won’t get the full story til next summer when Netflix inevitably does a C tier docu-drama series about it.

[downWidOutaFite]

In the New Scientist interview HT Kim seemed to imply that he wouldn't help other researchers until his paper gets published. If the synthesis ends up being tricky this could take a while.

[adrian_mrd]

Link to the New Scientist article is: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2384782-room-temperatur...