Unconfirmed video showing potential LK-99 sample exhibiting the Meissner effect

https://twitter.com/zebulgar/status/1686498517227814912

by dtx1 • 3 years ago

307 173 3 years ago

twitter.com

dtx14• 3 years ago

Can anyone with better twitter experience figure out who posted this first?

mrandish• 3 years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36963751

jychang• 3 years ago

This is the source: https://twitter.com/vasuttomas0423/status/168642344021411840...

@dang might be a good idea to replace the link

zardo• 3 years ago

Auto-translated > This is the first time I've been joining Twitter to this question. Looking for the source of this video. My fellow researcher said he received this video from another colleague on Telegram.

So the "source" is someone asking if anyone knows the source. This video could easily be a hoax.

eiiot• 3 years ago

The original source of the video (from a telegram channel?) has the rock floating horizontally, which would make an actual superconductor much more plausible.

https://twitter.com/vasuttomas0423/status/168642344021411840...

dtx14• 3 years ago

Could be a horizontal video that was rotated

heyitsguay• 3 years ago

It is, the same author posted a rotated version in the replies: https://nitter.net/667keos/status/1686490898480173056#m

drooby• 3 years ago

I’m extremely confused why people claiming to make (or corroborate) a massive scientific discovery are using potatoes to film their evidence.

pengaru• 3 years ago

Welcome to the future where convenience is king, regardless of context.

Dalewyn• 3 years ago

You fight wars with the army you have, not the army you want.

In this day and age, practically everyone has a potato in their pocket. Almost noone has a professional video camera with requisite lens assembly costing at least several grand total in their pocket (not that one would fit in there).

Terr_• 3 years ago

Perhaps an effect from how small the pieces are? Even a "non-potato" camera will have problems with tiny things at close ranges unless you have additional lenses/equipment.

marcosdumay• 3 years ago

My phone couldn't make this video, and I picked the model based on the camera.

MKais• 3 years ago

From the same guy who posted the video:

The videos I have are undoubtedly clearer than this one. It seems that the video quality is getting compromised when uploading it to Twitter.

https://twitter.com/VasutTomas0423/status/168658616920589926...

beowulfey2• 3 years ago

Every single thing bought in the lab has to be justified. If there had not been a need to take videos of hovering mm-scale superconducting fragments before, a good videography setup may not be present in the lab. And don’t get me started on what it would take to GET one…

zeronullempty• 3 years ago

I think this is basically "leaking" things that are intended to be published later in papers and journals.

koalala• 3 years ago

the original poster said that this video was sent to him by a fellow researcher who received it on telegram from 'a colleague'. no further details given. if this is truly lk99 showing flux pinning, then that would be very strong evidence that it's also a superconductor. (physics bsc here, my only experience with condensed matter is 1 course and nothing more)

dTal• 3 years ago

You can observe the Meissner effect using an ordinary pencil lead, so I wouldn't call it "very strong evidence":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeIizmhzPQc

dtx14• 3 years ago

No, thats just diamagnetism not the meissner effect

swader999• 3 years ago

Was I the only one that tried to clean my screen to get the piece of dirt off it?

xorbax5• 3 years ago

And now you know why, even if real, we won't build power lines from Alaska to New York with it

XorNot• 3 years ago

What is with the large number of commentators who have a bizarre "static world" hypothesis of technology?

Like, roll back to 90s and tell me that Lithium-Ion batteries would be powering all my power tools today and be on-par or better then corded counterparts?

NovaDudely• 3 years ago

To be fair, this is a laboratory sample to test the materials not a means of mass manufacturing. Same could of been said of Carbon nano tubes back in the mid 90's.

Yes, it could be a very long path to mass manufacturing, if it ever happens, but it is far to early to dismiss the potential of this straight up.

ceejayoz2• 3 years ago

This is also why my cell phone requires six semi trucks following me around to provide computing power and radio equipment.

38• 3 years ago

non crappy link:

http://farside.link/twitter.com/zebulgar/status/168649851722...

jiggawatts2• 3 years ago

The key thing to notice in this video is that the spec is levitating above a single monolithic magnet.

The levitation with ordinary diamagnets such as pyrolytic carbon requires an array of magnets to create a concave pocket in the field, otherwise the floating sample will "slide off" and fall. Monolithic magnets produce convex fields.

Some people elsewhere also commented that this could be a video of an ordinary high-temperature superconductor, but I doubt it. Such a tiny spec would warm up to room temperature very quickly. I've experimented with broken and shattered fragments of YBCO and it wasn't possible to make small pieces hover like this, they'd warm up too quickly. Also, they were always frosty looking. To make them look black you'd have to do it in a perfectly dry atmosphere, which is a non-trivial setup.

ghayes• 3 years ago

I had to look up "high-temperature superconductor" since it read like a typo:

High-temperature superconductors (abbreviated high-Tc or HTS) are defined as materials that behave as superconductors at temperatures above 77 K (−196.2 °C; −321.1 °F), the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. They are only "high-temperature" relative to previously known superconductors, which function at even colder temperatures, close to absolute zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-temperature_superconducti...

px43• 3 years ago

Looks like we're going to need a VHTS and UHTS. Exciting times.

WiSaGaN• 3 years ago

Despite their names suggesting otherwise, high-temperature superconductors actually require a colder environment than their room-temperature counterparts. This may seem counterintuitive, yet it's a perfect illustration of the idiosyncrasies that arise within complex systems that evolve over time. These naming conventions, like the codebases in large corporations, are the outcome of continual modifications that are so deeply ingrained, a complete overhaul would be prohibitively costly. When examining such codebases, inconsistencies and discrepancies are common, and they can appear almost ludicrous when compared side by side. However, it's crucial to understand that they are not mistakes, but rather footprints in the path of progression, mapping out the convoluted journey of technological evolution.

proto_lambda• 3 years ago

It's like "High Frequency" radio waves, which are actually at the low end of the spectrum used in practice today.

aaron695• 3 years ago

Because of prediction markets like https://polymarket.com/event/is-the-room-temp-superconductor... there is a reason to put in an effort to fake this.

This is very well done if faked (dated up the top left), so it would be another first if it was a real fake. That would also be exciting.

The strange things are...

No one else can find it yet.

It's not a phone video off a monitor, it's an actual video, time stamped and watermarked. Poster says Twitter is lowing the quality. It's also a strange aspect ratio and position for lab video (that watermarks a date).

It's watermarked with a unknown watermark.

Twitter account is brand new.

yorwba• 3 years ago

The "LTC" watermark in blue might refer to "linear timecode" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_timecode and I guess it's possible whatever equipment they used to embed the timestamp in the video also adds this watermark.

fallingknife2• 3 years ago

There is not enough liquidity. The max profit you can take from that market by betting on yes at this point is around $17,000. It probably costs something like that or more to do a convincing fake at this point.

geostupid• 3 years ago

Thanks so much for the link to Polymarket. I haven't seen a prediction site since Intrade.

whimsicalism• 3 years ago

Interesting. This market is illegal in the US yeah? Violates CFTC letter

e: Looked it up, they got fined a few million a year ago so now US users cannot bet

xdennis• 3 years ago

a single monolithic magnet

How can you tell though? There are magnets which look like a single thing, but the polarity switches on the same side multiple times (sorry, I don't know what they're actually called).

ortusdux• 3 years ago

I've heard them called programmable magnets:

https://www.magnet-sdm.com/2019/11/21/programmable-magnetize...

That being said, I highly doubt they are using one in this video.

est2• 3 years ago

In case anyone missed previous videos

Two from HUST: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14p4y1V7kS/ https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV13k4y1G7i1/

One by USTC https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ex4y1X7ix/ this tiny sample can stand on its pointy side.

Another by Qufu Normal University https://www.zhihu.com/zvideo/1669820225079070720

soultrees• 3 years ago

Curious, what does the text flying by on the screen say on the bilibili video? I’m always amazing at the cultural differences in design and how Chinese apps tend to always be so busy. Everything feels like a slot machine.

eschatology• 3 years ago

They are user comments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danmaku_subtitling

Compared to regular comments on say youtube, these kinda give a time element to the comments, when they should appear in the video playback

chen0x00• 3 years ago

That thing is called "弹幕DanMu" (Barrage), which is a type of synchronized comment that appears alongside video playback. In this video, most of the comments are related to "taking a group photo" and "sending blessings". Perhaps because Chinese characters can convey more information in shorter sentences, this form of commentary is not as popular in other places, but it can actually be quite interesting. It provides an interactive experience that transcends time and space. On Bilibili, you can adjust the display area, font size, transparency, scroll speed, and intelligent prevention of blocking the main content for danmu. If you don't like it, you can turn it off.

isaacfung• 3 years ago

It originated from the japanese video sharing website Niconico. It gives the users a sense of participation. Some twitch streams also have on-screen elements that can be controlled by chat. Many twitch viewers enjoy chaos and like mindlessly spamming and reposting copypastas.

sshine• 3 years ago

Watching movies on Chinese movie sites also gives you these comments.

I think they're insanely distracting, and they only get worse the better I get at understanding them. But then again, people disagree on whether you should talk during movies, too. If it's a bad movie, sometimes the user commentary is better.

est2• 3 years ago

adding another from a person affiliated with THU https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV14z4y1s7Vo/

Escapado• 3 years ago

This whole saga is so exciting to watch. Maybe someone with a background in material science and/or engineering can help me out with a question: _If_ LK-99 turns out to be a room temperature superconductor how likely do you think it will be that we figure out how to to mass produce it in sufficient quality and quantity so that it can in fact be used for all the exciting applications we have for rtscs? I mean it's one thing to create a lab sample at 10% yield the size of a thumbnail but another thing entirely to create super long cables or massive amounts of motor parts or large sheets of it for MRTs. Is it a matter of time? Or could some applications remain elusive because of other potentially undesirable properties of the material (brittleness, heterogeneity, you name it)?

tired_and_awake• 3 years ago

If its real, it's going to excite a metric fuckton of funding in hightc superconductors research.

It doesn't have to be LK99. It'll be one of the other variants that we discover.

Others with more knowledge materials production please add more to this... but it's certainly encouraging there's no rare earth metals or anything radioactive as a component!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/Ti...

amluto2• 3 years ago

I would much rather have rare earth metals involved than lead.

(Rare earths are neither particularly rare nor particularly toxic. They do seem to have the annoying property that there aren’t that many large rare earth mines.)

psKama• 3 years ago

Rather than this particular "magic" material, LK99, in the original paper(s), authors propose their theory on why this material is behaving the way it is. This is a totally new way for achieving superconductivity in room conditions. If it is confirmed to be true, scientist can try to create similar materials with similar lattice structures focusing on what's needed, rather than focusing on LK99.

Even if LK99 may not, one of the materials with similar properties they will create may be easy to produce and robust to use.

jiggawatts2• 3 years ago

Similar ceramic or crystalline superconductors took a long time to convert into useful cables. One technique is to fill a hollow silver(!) tube with powder, and then press it flat to compress the grains so that they touch. It may be possible to re-use similar techniques as-is, but that's hard to predict.

One theoretical paper suggests that the copper doping has two ways of occurring in the crystal structure, and that the more energetically favoured one is not the desired configuration. It may be very challenging to produce the desired crystal structure in bulk, and then it might not be stable over long time periods.

With most superconductors, they start to lose their benefits close to their critical temperature. So this material may not be able to support strong magnetic fields or high currents.

I expect thin-film applications to happen first. It's easy to control, easy to make large contiguous surfaces, and very useful for all sorts of things. Thin motherboards, LCD/OLED display panels, flat antennas, etc, etc...

BasedAnon• 3 years ago

i think i need to buy more silver

pushkine• 3 years ago

Isn't it true we've only tested superconducting materials at very low temps? Perhaps their robustness falls tremendously when not hundreds of degrees in the negative

djtango• 3 years ago

Have you got a source to read more about this? Why the choice of silver - because of its reduced reactivity vs other conductors?

segfaultbuserr2• 3 years ago

If this room-temperature superconductivity result is real, I have high hopes on the improvements they can possibly bring to the field of electrical metrology. Many precision measurement instruments require superconductive Josephson junctions, such as reproducing the definition of the SI volt [0], or magnetic field measurements with SQUID. But these exotic devices only exist in top research labs due to extremely high maintenance cost, including cooling requirement.

Imagine a day when every medium-sized research lab has direct access to the quantum-accurate SI volt and nobody needs to send their voltmeters out for calibration anymore (although I don't know how hard would it take to make a microchip with 10,000+ Josephson junctions out of it...)

[0] https://www.nist.gov/programs-projects/quantum-voltage-proje...

FreshStart• 3 years ago

Just make a standardized toner and allow printing it with a dryable liquid in a usefull Config?

dmarchand90• 3 years ago

It's a great question. I don't think anyone has a certain answer but it's definitely a real risk. The quick example is graphene which has all kinds of interesting properties, but, as far as I can tell, no practical applications primarily due to production issues

alkibiades2• 3 years ago

so how expensive would this material be to make? i’ve seen everyone say potential uses but i just wanna know if it’s economically feasible

coolspot• 3 years ago

Like $20 per kilo + energy and labor

Snoozus• 3 years ago

For context, copper is around 7 per kilo.

aqme282• 3 years ago

The bulk cost of this material is not going to be the problem with commercialization. The ingredients and labor aren't very expensive. The problem is that no one has found a process to consistently make chunks bigger than like a rice grain of this stuff.

DoingIsLearning• 3 years ago

If you can grow it in a constrainted geometry a grain of rice is a very large footprint for IC design.

The real revolution with something like this is in IC design (computers & Sensors) and maybe Transformer/Inductor/Coil design. Nobody is realistically expecting to roll out hoverboards or HVDC cables with this crystal.

wredue• 3 years ago

People aren’t even certain it’s real. Why would anyone have a clue about the mass production or creation of larger chunks yet?

amluto2• 3 years ago

The lead content may well be a barrier to commercialization. There are plenty of use cases for which a material that is likely brittle and contains a large fraction of lead is a problem.

(If this is real, I would expect other related materials that don’t contain lead to be found.)

tanepiper• 3 years ago

About the same quality as most UFO videos.

WithinReason• 3 years ago

I want to believe

anthony88• 3 years ago

As a non physicist here, why not showing a video of a ohmmeter showing zero's when measuring the resistance of this material instead of its levitation?

Out_of_Characte• 3 years ago

Look at how tiny the spec is. What would be the most convincing evidence? A resistence meter that basacally touches itself or a spec clearly floating on a magnet without cooling.

netheril96• 3 years ago

My guess is that it needs to be very pure to have zero resistance. But levitation requires less purity.

out_of_protocol• 3 years ago

Way too easy to fake. Too many places to modify, including non-obvious like ohmmeter mode or firmware

segfaultbuserr2• 3 years ago

A Meissner effect demo is usually seen as an easier and stronger proof of superconductivity than a resistance measurement, which is a delicate task and susceptible to experimental errors.

First, one cannot measure superconductivity with an ordinary ohmmeter. Electrodes, wires and the ohmmeter itself are resistive, the meter can never show zero ohms. So you can't just look at the screen read-out and say there's superconductivity, you need to set an experiment up to do it manually, with a current source and a voltmeter to measure the IV curve across the material [1]. Even then, the voltmeter will never show "zero" volt because of noise, such as thermocouple effect, triboelectric effect, or electromagnetic interference - which need to be minimized during the experiment and removed during post-processing. There are also the problems of sample preparation and purity as others have noted.

[1] It's basically the same 4-wire Kelvin sensing used by all milli-ohmmeters. But to characterize superconductivity, you need to do even better. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-terminal_sensing

JaggerJo• 3 years ago

I wonder if there is a way to make a profit by buying quantum computing stocks right now..

RyanAdamas• 3 years ago

Gonna need a banana for scale, boys.

Edit: Is it possible to replicate the structure of this material using carbon nano-tubing? Someone mentioned packing ceramic like materials into silver tubes as a means of making cables; can that be done with carbon nano-tubing?

stephenitis• 3 years ago

I believe it was tried, carbon nanotubes don't work. I can't cite the reason why.

meindnoch• 3 years ago

Bullshit. I believe it when prediction markets say so.

tb_technical2• 3 years ago

What's stopping us from using superconductors to link power grids together? Does this technology enable more solar energy use without overloading the disconnected power grids?

wffurr• 3 years ago

Same thing that stops us from building long distance HVDC lines with off the shelf tech: money and time.

tb_technical2• 3 years ago

Thank you

sixQuarks2• 3 years ago

Why is everything surrounding this discovery seem so amateur? From the initial paper being so flimsy to all the "leaked" videos looking like it was taken by a monkey trying to learn how to video tape for the first time.

Like, is it that difficult to try to get a decent video of something that is life changing?

regularfry6• 3 years ago

Yes. The intersection of people who have been lucky enough to make a working sample and people who have decent video equipment has no reason to be other than an empty set.

sixQuarks2• 3 years ago

Everybody has a smartphone these days. I’m not asking for a professional production.

VerminOctopus1• 3 years ago

Yeah it’s hard for me to take any of this at face value given how absolutely janky the evidence is thus far. I’m waiting for some non-potato cam footage with a human saying “hey watch this superconductor footage, this is what we did to make the material”

sigmar• 3 years ago

I've got to imagine this is fake (not LK-99, but this video specifically) because there's already other partial levitation videos out, and anyone that synthesized this material well enough to get full meissner effect levitation would post about it with their name (or lab name) attached ASAP.

edit: also the origin story sounds strange, unless translated badly "A fellow researcher of mine said he received this video from another colleague on Telegram."

q3k• 3 years ago

would post about it with their name (or lab name) attached ASAP

You underestimate how many people simply don't feel the need (or explicitly don't want) to have their name attached to their work.

marcusverus• 3 years ago

Such people are commonplace when the stakes are low, but when the stakes are high, they are few. How many world-historical contributions can you think of which were made by people who intentionally remained anonymous? Satoshi is the only one who comes to mind.

Unconfirmed video showing potential LK-99 sample exhibiting the Meissner effect

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