The papers were not ready for publication

https://twitter.com/8teAPi/status/1684385895565365248

by Accujack • 3 years ago

211 147 3 years ago

Accujack5• 3 years ago

Wondering what's happening with the room temperature/ambient pressure superconductor that's had 3x posts here on HN?

It's turning out to be a wild story regardless of the science... which still seems to be valid, although not publicly replicated yet.

I'll see if I can summarize the present situation: A couple of days ago, two papers were posted to arXiv (science publishing repository) describing a room temperature and ambient pressure superconductor created by a Korean team working at an institute in Korea. It looked promising (still does) and many people work on duplicating the results. Such a discovery would be the most important one in physics this century/Nobel prize material.

The papers had some oddities - a cut and paste error, different authors listed between the two, missing some data and neither one was peer reviewed. Nonetheless, the author scientists (some who are well known) stand by their discovery.

Today, how the papers were published with the above issues was discovered. One of the "authors" listed on one of the papers (YH Kwon) is the one who uploaded both papers (apparently without permission from the other authors, and maybe without being an author) to arXiv.

This person apparently is affiliated with one of the corporate sponsors (LG) of the work in Korea, and he came to the team as a condition of funding for the work. When the team decided to start to publish according to the process (they'd been working on this material for a couple of years, doing their scientific due diligence) about four weeks ago, they apparently decided not to give any credit to the industry person because he was just "there" because of funding. The industry person quit the team then, and left the organization.

The remaining team submitted their paper for peer review in a well known journal, where it's working through the process now.

The industry person went on to upload the two papers (one with edited author list) to arXiv, and apparently today gave a speech at an industry conference in Korea taking credit for the work. So, he's not happy with the team and he's apparently trying to take credit.

The rest of the team working on this material stands by their work and is waiting for the proper peer review process to complete on the paper they submitted to the scientific journal to be done, at which point they would (quite properly following the process) publish it.

So here we are, with one rogue scientist doing his best to claim credit for this discovery and bypassing all standard scientific publishing practices, with the non peer reviewed version of the team's paper and an edited/incorrect version of another paper sent out to the world before the original team could publish theirs.

The good news from all this is that all these people (including well known/respected scientists and professors) are behaving not like frauds but as if they've actually discovered what they say they have. This lends credence to the idea that this major discovery in physics and materials science is real and may change the world.

Attempts to replicate the material (called LK-99) are proceeding based on the "unready/leaked" papers and may or may not succeed. If they do not, it's likely when the peer reviewed version comes out that replication by at least one "real" scientific lab will already have been done prior to publication, and the peer reviewed version of the article will have more/more correct information to aid in duplicating the LK-99 material.

Regardless of what happens, this is an amazing story. The link I CCed above is to a Twitter post giving details on the above. There's now a Twitter list being compiled of all the people working on replication and reporting on the drama, see here: https://twitter.com/altryne/status/1685148163223719936

*Edit: Here's the actual list of LK-99 related Twitterers: https://twitter.com/i/lists/1684446795731206144

uejfiweun2• 3 years ago

I am following this story closely as well. I'd love for some technological breakthrough to leap us into the future. Unfortunately with this one it seems to be mixed. Someone here on HN posted this thread yesterday by a guy who's actually in Seoul: https://nitter.net/sanxiyn/status/1685094029116297216 And from this account it doesn't exactly look like a professional outfit that made this. But I'm still holding my breath until other labs attempt to replicate.

Accujack5• 3 years ago

Yeah, that guy was linked in the Twitter list above.

The papers on arXiv are "crap" because they weren't ready for publication... the actual team's paper has been submitted for peer review to a respected journal and is being looked at/corrected/tested.

What got published was leaked, hence the poor quality work.

Check the twitter list for more info.

lll-o-lll• 3 years ago

There is definitely a mix of evidence from the people side of the equation. Rank amateurism mixed with well credentialed researchers. Check out this vid from EEVBlog highlighting one of the worst “amateur hour” parts: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QHPFphlzwdQ (tldr is that the main website shows a vid waving a magnet in front of a copper disk coated in their new material. The copper plate moves around because of Lenz’s law! Nothing to do with superconducting)

Meanwhile, the very well credentialed HyunTak clearly believes it’s real, but he was parachuted in late in the development.

Personally, I think we will just have to wait the week to see if this is real.

pfdietz5• 3 years ago

All this drama greatly reduces the likelihood this will turn out well.

yellow_postit• 3 years ago

I was thinking the opposite — all the posturing, fighting for credit, all seem like they truly believe they have something.

Still believe the safe bet is this is spurious.

But it’s some drama that feels a lot more enjoyable and less consequential than most things in the news recently.

bandyaboot• 3 years ago

Obviously the drama isn’t great. One thing that piqued by interest from this story though is that after the initial paper was shoved out the door to arxiv, you had this other guy HyunTak who didn’t think the paper was ready and who is apparently well known. He apparently then thinks it’s worth it to push his own version out presumably so his name is attached to the work. Perhaps it’s good sign that he appears to be that motivated to have is name tied to this? I may be grasping at straws because I want this to be the real deal…

ChuckMcM• 3 years ago

The drama does give it kind of a cold fusion vibe. But the motivation of the "industry guy" is pretty text book. If you wanted to scam your way into a Nobel Prize this might be a way to do it right? Still I don't think the Nobel committee would buy it but who knows right?

Going to be really an interesting August and even if it doesn't pan out to be "superconducting" the theory is one that leads to more structural investigations into crystal structures that "might".

TechBro8615• 3 years ago

Why? It has no impact on the validity of the results, and as others have mentioned, the fact scientists are engaging in drama arguably makes it more likely they believe in the results. The drama is about receiving credit for the work, not rushing fraudulent results.

loxias2• 3 years ago

I don't care about any of this drama.

I could be wrong but as I understand it the claim is that lanarkite and copper phosphide, when ground together at a 1:1 ratio, sealed under vacuum in a quartz tube, and heated to 925C, become a *room temperature superconductor*.

This claim is incredible and verifiable, so much so that it annoys me to hear any side chatter.

We should know "soon" (c.f. https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/breaking-supercond...)

renewiltord• 3 years ago

Haha I have that bias too but CRISPR had insane drama.

evouga• 3 years ago

“Most important one in physics this century”: I’m hoping the room-temperature superconductor pans out, but even if it does, the century is young!

This time in the 20th century, relativity was “obviously” the most important discovery of the century, with the new theory of quantum mechanics right around the corner.

nmfisher• 3 years ago

I've been waiting for someone to put together a summary of the authorship issue, this is great. Thank you!

amadsen• 3 years ago

Just to clarify: ArXiv is a pre-print server. By definition anything uploaded there has not (yet) undergone peer review. Posting papers there before they're published in a journal (which can take many months) is standard practice, not "bypassing publishing practices" or a "leak" per se. In this case there seems to be something fishy going on, but the fact that the papers were made public in this way is not strange in itself.

I also hear that it's not uncommon for superconductivity groups to intentionally include "errors" in their early drafts to avoid competitors copying their work before they're ready to publish.

akasakahakada• 3 years ago

I think everyone should just stfu and do experiments. Let the law of physics to decide who is the winner. All these side stories are irrelevant nonsense trash.

p1mrx• 3 years ago

When should we expect to see the result of your experiments?

falseAss• 3 years ago

this one. The only thing matters is whether this is real or not. It's really not the time to care these messy trivials

AndrewPGameDev• 3 years ago

I really don't understand why this tweet implied that Lee and Kim are autistic, or that they needed to be "babysit" by a different professor. Seems weirdly hostile for no discernable reason.

Regardless, I don't think I'm going to be super hyped about the LK-99 story until we see some replication, which should hopefully happen within a couple days.

monero-xmr2• 3 years ago

“Autist” is a slang term of endearment for people who are weirdly obsessed about various things. It’s similar to “based”. It doesn’t mean anything other than they were not worldly businessmen and investors felt they needed an adult to watch them.

bagels• 3 years ago

Yeah, I think some people might find it offensive when it's actually used as an insult.

steve_adams_86• 3 years ago

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it used as a term of endearment so much as a way of describing someone as strange or atypical while purposefully distancing yourself from them. It’s not flattering, and it’s overtly marginalizing. I don’t take much offence from it, and I don’t find it remotely endearing either. I can’t speak for all people on the spectrum, but I doubt many actually like it.

mellosouls• 3 years ago

Accurate on the behavioural description but pretty much an alternative to "nerd" and whether it's endearing or not depends on context. Agree it's not remotely hostile here.

kleiba• 3 years ago

It's sarcasm.

Glyptodon• 3 years ago

It's not really saying that they're actually autistic, it's saying that the a corporation was able to basically buy its researcher into their research & credit because they didn't navigate the academic system sufficiently to get tenure or respected positions a la a k-drama, possibly because they were more into their own work than networking and status. In a sarcastic/bitter/eye-rolly way.

eecc• 3 years ago

Very well said

fakedang• 3 years ago

Autist =/= autistic. The latter is used to formally refer to anyone on the spectrum. The former is often used as a friendly or self-deprecating title.

yongjik2• 3 years ago

A few hours ago people found a Facebook post dated June, by some professor in Korea, where he posted a photo of a cold-call mass mail by the Quantum Energy Lab (the lab in question), claiming that they had discovered room-temperature superconductor and asking for a private meeting for demonstration. His verdict was that it was a total scam, because why would anyone with room-temperature superconductor be shopping for private meetings instead of submitting a paper to Nature and getting instant fame.

It doesn't prove that it's a scam, but it's not looking good, either.

Link (in Korean): https://gall.dcinside.com/board/view/?id=superconductor&no=6...

nneonneo• 3 years ago

Probably because they tried submitting a paper to Nature and were rebuffed, but they’re still fully convinced they have something that works.

They may have been wanting to find someone to collaborate on the validation so they could get that Nature paper out.

CSMastermind• 3 years ago

Here's a translation of the posts for those who don't speak Korean, apologies for any inaccuracies a native speaker could do a better job:

Question:

Do you have any thoughts on this video?

Nature, which I heard was reluctant to publish a paper about it, asked for the results to be published in another academic journal first.

Response:

I've never seen anything like this video. This is what happens when you put a copper-neodymium magnet next to it. Superconductors do not show this characteristic.

Copper does not stick to magnets. However, copper reacts when a magnet moves. This is because when the magnetic field applied to copper changes, eddy currents flow in copper to prevent the magnetic field from changing. This image shows a typical example of copper and a rapidly moving neodymium magnet.

As the representative of the academic community, I try not to express my opinion on room-temperature superconductivity until the verification by a professional institution is completed. But I was convinced after seeing this. If it is a superconductor with the Meissner effect, even if the neodymium magnet is pushed very slowly, the superconductor should be pushed out. If a permanent magnet is moved quickly in this way, a phenomenon occurs in which the copper disk is pushed or pulled by the eddy currents induced in the copper disk.

If there is a superconductor of this size, it can be verified by sending it to a professional institution and just measuring the electrical resistance.

How could these kids grown it to be so big? This is not something that can be picked up. There was also a century-old lie of this level in the last century. Room-temperature nuclear fusion.

There is a 0.0001% chance that I will be embarrassed, but if that is the case, I will apologize with a happy heart. What's going on?

---

Then there's some discussion about who the people who created the video are and the letters DOD appear but I have no idea if that means "Department of Defense" or some other acronym.

---

Someone posts sarcastically:

Hahaha, The era of room-temperature superconductivity has finally arrived! And it's not even in a high-pressure environment! Maybe my luck will change now?

But why at 127°C? Everyone else expresses critical temperature in absolute temperature, right? Why 127? Oh, I see, that's 400 K. It's not common for a material to have a critical temperature that's so precise and at a nice round number.

I received a document in the mail that was meant to be sent to a professor at Seoul National University. I guess they made a bunch of copies and mixed up the envelopes and documents.

I wonder if this professor, who is an honorary professor at Hanyang University, has ever even attended an international conference. If he presented these results at an international conference, it would be a huge success.

Superconductivity and energy...they use all the buzzwords.

---

They post a picture of the letter which says:

Dear Professor,

I am writing to inform you that the research you have been conducting has been successful. We have achieved room-temperature superconductivity, which is a major breakthrough in the field of energy.

I would like to thank you for your hard work and dedication to this project. Your contributions have been invaluable, and we could not have achieved this success without you.

I am confident that this breakthrough will have a significant impact on the world. It has the potential to revolutionize the way we generate and use energy, and it could lead to new applications in many other fields.

I would like to invite you to present your findings at an upcoming international conference. This would be an excellent opportunity to share your work with the world and to discuss the potential applications of room-temperature superconductivity.

Thank you again for your contributions to this project. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Kim Hyuntak

CEO, Energy Research Institute

yongjik2• 3 years ago

Then there's some discussion about who the people who created the video are and the letters DOD appear but I have no idea if that means "Department of Defense" or some other acronym.

I don't think there's any mention of "DOD", it's just a screenshot of a low-quality discussion in yet another discussion board where people were asking "So who the fuck is this guy?" (i.e., the guy who's saying it's probably a scam).

* I probably should have mentioned that this site is roughly a Korean equivalent of 4chan and the discussions are generally low quality and filled with swears. But the screenshot of the Facebook post seems genuine.

rcpt• 3 years ago

Super interested in what's going to happen with this but I had to mute that account. Feels like they're just engagement farming and making wild guesses from outside.

teetertater• 3 years ago

Came to the exact same conclusion. Who is this person and where are their sources?

cmrdporcupine• 3 years ago

Paywalled.

javajosh3• 3 years ago

We got K-pop, K-drama, and now K-sci--with K-drama pan-chan. It's a little sad that people act this way, but hey, the public has made it VERY clear that they do NOT value dignity, they only value winning.

I think this kind of back-biting and drama is precisely why cultural norms around virtue, dignity, and respect are valuable. I suppose the alternative view is that this is all small beans, and the important thing is that a major discovery was made no matter how messily.

kimorpark2• 3 years ago

Your rando korea bashing reveals the nature of your neighboorhood upbringing and manners. Please stick to science facts re lk99 on this post.

javajosh3• 3 years ago

Oh shit, you got me. Yeah, Korea sucks - it's basically just a peninsula with a nasty DMZ running through the middle, temperate rain-forests and mountains that are so 90's and lame. Did I mention the geology? Jesus, don't get me started. Not a subduction zone for a thousand miles in any direction! It's embarrassing. I'm not sure how you picked that up from my comment, but damn you're good.

duped• 3 years ago

If it turns out all you need to make STP superconductors is a furnace (granted, a good lab furnace) and some lead and potassium, there are thousands of foundries across the world that will start making it and its variants with no regard for IP rights. Semiconductors regularly use similar processes during production and they're not the hard ones, so it seems like good news if it's just the recipe that needs to be copied.

It's pretty great for humanity if it turns out to be real and relatively simple to produce.

tomrod2• 3 years ago

Seems reasonable that such a pressing tech gets a high reward. Say, $200M for each inventor, then humanity is set?

sillysaurusx2• 3 years ago

Whose $200M?

That’s the rub. I agree with you morally, and I think most people would agree that inventors of fundamental tech should be as well-compensated as founders who “merely” bring it to market. But were Einstein or Feynman wealthy, or Newton before them? Perhaps it’s the scientific fate to be at odds with capitalism.

On the other hand, no amount of money can immortalize you the way this type of discovery would.

javajosh3• 3 years ago

10 million gives a person a nice home or two in most places people want to live, plus a six figure income for the rest of their life.

200 million is private jet money.

topspin• 3 years ago

then humanity is set

No. Whatever problems LK-99 might solve will be rapidly replaced by new, even more pressing, "problems."

mcpackieh• 3 years ago

What's the rush? If it's real we'll figure it out soon enough. If it takes days or weeks or even months, that will make little difference in the long run.

joshspankit• 3 years ago

I’d very much prefer that approach the the current one.

I’d like to see important discoveries free from “IP” and patent encumbrances and instead of inventors (hopefully) getting paid based on market viability, getting paid based on the positive different it makes to the health of the world.

Just imagine the renaissance on fresh food, for example.

pfdietz5• 3 years ago

If it turned out to be that easy, it should already have been replicated.

peyton• 3 years ago

Somebody claims to have done it. Complains the instructions from the paper suck. https://twitter.com/iris_igb/status/1685341730902577153

ck2• 3 years ago

In all seriousness and not sarcasm, using any kind of link to twitter seems like a really bad idea for persistence.

patatero• 3 years ago

Based on the tweet it sounds like the problem stems from Nobel Prize only allowing a maximum of 3 names on a paper.

epups• 3 years ago

I was excited initially, but now I would place the probability that this is true at under 1%. If you build a working room temperature superconductor in 2021 and have a patent ready in March 2023, it is absolutely ridiculous that you would not have dozens of samples to share by now. Everyone is focusing on replication but we haven't even independently validated their claim yet.

max_2• 3 years ago

What exactly are the interesting use cases & practical applications of room temperature superconductors?

zogomoox• 3 years ago

just from the top of my head:

- transport electricity from anywhere without losses - handheld tomography devices - super powerful small/light electric motors - light electric motors means: electric planes - cheap maglev trains - rail guns - possibly faster computer chips using josephson junctions

max_2• 3 years ago

This was great. Thanks.

moffkalast2• 3 years ago

super powerful small/light electric motors - light electric motors means: electric planes

I would be extremely sceptical that this would help electric planes all that much. Current brushless motors aren't really all that heavy for their kW output and already boast 90% efficiency at optimal load and RPM, which on a plane will be for the majority of the cruise.

So maybe you can reduce the plane mass by a few percent, give it a bit more efficiency, but it doesn't change the fact that kerosene has 100x more energy density per kg than lithium ion. Electric drivetrains are already god tier in terms of power and efficiency, they just need an energy source that doesn't completely suck.

Every doctor's office having an MRI and terahertz processors that use next to no power will be very cool though, if this all pans out.

almostnormal• 3 years ago

Another one: Lossless storage of energy.

adad95• 3 years ago

Korean LK-99 Ambient Temperature Superconductor BUSTED! by EEvBlog - https://youtu.be/QHPFphlzwdQ

lmpdev• 3 years ago

I love EEVBlog but I wish he'd stop making videos on topics outside his area of expertise for views

He's excellent at electronic engineering but he's not a physicist

IshKebab• 3 years ago

He just pointed out that their demonstration video can be easily explained without any superconduction. I don't see why you need to be a professional physicist for that.

Do you also need to be a physicist to point out that their "levitating" sample is in fact still touching the magnet?

Or that the "0 resistance" is actually 1000x more resistive than copper.

eqvinox• 3 years ago

If they had a working(-ish) room temperature and pressure superconductor in 1999 and, for 20 fricken years, were unable to get it out the door due to how the scientific community and publications work… the scientific community needs an overhaul.

(To be fair, this feels like a problem specific to the scientific community in Korea.)

was_a_dev• 3 years ago

If they had a RTAP superconductor in 1999. Industry would have bypassed the scientific community by now

seesawtron• 3 years ago

Reminds me of the CRISPR "war" between groups of scientists who tried to patent is llt as their own.

https://www.science.org/content/article/how-battle-lines-ove...

kimorpark2• 3 years ago

Here is a more detailed link about the replication claim.

https://nitter.net/iris_igb/status/1685341730902577153#m

xbox99• 3 years ago

Here's the issue with copper and the Meissner effect and claims in this paper:

- 50% copper phosphide in the material. - Lenz's law effect on copper content (e.g. trojan horse situation.."lets use copper because this will make the demos easy"). - No clear demonstration of the Meissner effect.

Link to eevblog and replicating the v silly video on the landing page of the institute (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHPFphlzwdQ). There are other problems but this screams of professional fakery but fakery indeed.

The papers were not ready for publication

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