My understanding is that the "99" in LK-99 is the year it they first synthesized the material, i.e. 1999.
Assuming this is all true, why is it just now coming to light? Did they just not know what they had? (I have not been following this closely, maybe this has already been explained)
As I've read it, the first lead to the material was 99.
2018 They got funding to research it further,
2020 was a first attempt of publication at Nature that was retracted, further improvements were made until 22/23 were two patents were filled, then suddenly 10 days ago Kwon, one of the co-researchers jumped the gun publishing a paper with the details, on one hand fearing a leak of someone else publishing first as that was too simple to replicate, on the other hand excluding everyone else from the paper and only listing him and Lee/Kim (LK) as authors as a Nobel prize can only be shared by three people. 2.5hrs later LK published again listing other 5 authors but him.
Ultimately I'm glad that the research has seen the light, since I'm of the personal persuasion that there is no single scrap of science that should ever be done in the dark. All research, in a perfect world, would be entirely public and freely and easily accessible.
With that being said, I'm not sure if leaking a paper and selfishly putting your name on it and excluding others so that you win a Nobel Prize doesn't exactly seem "heroic". Certainly beneficial for mankind, but it seems like a self-serving action.
The means justify the end. For all we know Lee and Kim would have sat on this for another year or more. I think that’s very understandable and I can’t fault them for wanting to be certain, given all the nasty things people have been saying about them, but the leak has clearly served humanity better than keeping it under wraps.
> but the leak has clearly served humanity better than keeping it under wraps.
Yeah, advancing human knowledge serves humanity, but unfortunately not really those who are advancing that knowledge. Those with money will just use your invention and make more money, you will have a pat on the back. I wish it was more balanced, we would have a lot of inventions sooner and implemented faster.
If it increases entropy as much as many suspect and it only took 1/3 of a couple humans' lives to open that phase space, the Universe has done what it wanted - to hasten heat-death.
As Hawking once explained, “Since events before the Big Bang have no observational consequences, one may as well cut them out of the theory, and say that time began at the Big Bang.” When cosmologists talk about the universe and its age, it seems to me, as a non-cosmologist, that they’re using terms of art related to their models.
Hawking’s explanation deduces that if the observable universe expanded from a singularity, we would be unable to meaningfully theorize what happened before then, since it would be beyond any form of observation to test the theory. Therefore, a scientific model rooted in observation can describe nothing earlier than the Big Bang.
However, not everything unseen is untrue. If a singularity were to form somewhere in Andromeda tomorrow — in all likelihood, one will — we will still have existed today.
Edit: The initial comment was meant as a lighthearted reply to the universe personification, but I ended up sensing a need to explain the reasoning.
It's not "personification", it's the universe tending toward entropy increasing overall. I don't think I've heard anyone claim that heat death "should have happened" as an argument against it, or what it's supposed to mean in reference to the original post.
There is a singularity in Andromeda, so I don't know why one forming matters
>Assuming this is all true, why is it just now coming to light? Did they just not know what they had?
This is why the calculations by Sinéad Griffin looked so interesting to me: they suggest that the superconductivity depends on an unconventional substitution pattern that might not (in fact should not) occur in most samples of Cu-doped lead apatite. So the active structure was only present in tiny quantities, requiring a long period of trial-and-error optimization.
Again, this is far from proof, but I thought it was at least very curious to have some theory that explains not just a mechanism for superconductivity but also why the samples seem to teeter on the edge of superconductivity so frustratingly.
The replies to my previous post ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36958419 ) suggesting that flat bands appear simply because copper doesn't belong in that lattice seem inconsistent with the fact that a flat band was not observed when copper substituted at the wrong type of lattice site. If flat bands appear merely because of the unpaired copper electron, they should appear when it is substituted only at Pb {2} sites, but they don't. The appearance of this band structure plus the observance of diamagnetism just takes us from happenstance to coincidence, so we need one more to conclude it is enemy action.
FWIW I don't work in condensed matter physics but I have taken the classes at grad level a few years back. I also should really be doing other things, but this is probably the most fun scientific news cycle since 'Oumuamua at least. (COVID doesn't count as "fun".)
I’m very much a layman, but my understanding is that LK-99 itself is not necessarily a superconductor. It’s polycrystalline which means it’s a very uneven material - not all LK-99 is the same. They both didn’t know it was what it was and also couldn’t nail down the procedure for consistently making it so that it has the superconductor properties. It took a long time to get the resources required to investigate this far - the scientists had their own lives and careers and didn’t get back to this particular investigation until recently.
It takes a week to bake/whatever a test sample. Which is why this is playing out so "slowly".
So, they had an idea and have been baking/testing/refining samples for decades. Science and funding takes a while.
What idea they started with and why they kept at it for 20 years is beyond me, that's a long time to chase an idea of you didn't have results or a hint that your idea would work. Maybe they had a weird sample that came from some other process in 1999 and have spent the intermediate time convincing funding people and doing the repetitive lab work required to get it to this point.
I have the same thought: "25 years? Why the fuck. Buy a new salt and publish a fucking paper."
I suppose they saw something favorable in that 99 sample and nobody else knew. The vagaries of chemical synthesis helped.
But it doesn't seem like they could have had a worse sample than what they fucking have now, while getting data that made them waste a quarter-century.
As much as people hype and have 'reproduced' it, I...dunno. If it's real, the autobiography will be worth an expensive translation.
Speaks to a supreme confidence in the theory, surely? I'm a layman but imagine everyone is going to want to hear every wild idea these guys could think up if this works out. They might have been sitting on this for 20 years? Probably why I'm not, but If I were any vc person I'd be busting down their door trying to give them all my money
How would you find such researchers if they didn't have plausible real-world results yet? I have a theory for new high performance heat engine which I developed over 15 years already, but I don't think anyone would give me ANY money for making a prototype (which may not work in reality), so I have to somehow do it in the limited time after working two jobs (I had to earn enough to have a home with a proper garage). Do you have any tips for someone like me?
Get involved with your local community of makers, get them intrigued by your idea and its potential, connect with people that will help you build it. Patent it, and then raise funds via the Internet to try and build it. Seek out local VCs. I know that's a lot to ask, on top of two jobs, but I didn't organize our economy.
> Get involved with your local community of makers, get them intrigued by your idea and its potential, connect with people that will help you build it.
This will prevent me from patenting it. I can also make first prototype myself, I've started last year, will try to finish this year. Funding would just let me drop one job and make it faster.
> Patent it, and then raise funds via the Internet to try and build it. Seek out local VCs. I know that's a lot to ask, on top of two jobs, but I didn't organize our economy.
I don't have enough money for patenting something that might not work. That's why I need to make a prototype. That prototype will be MUCH cheaper than a proper patent but takes some time which I also don't have too much (but working on it slowly). When I'm sure it works, I already have enough connections to make it actually happen.
At this moment, funding my prototype would just benefit humanity with earlier knowledge of whether it works, so of course no one sane will fund it, that's the sad reality with human priorities.
> I know that's a lot to ask, on top of two jobs, but I didn't organize our economy.
Yeah, I've only asked for tips just in case you have some, I don't blame you or anything. Thank you!
This thread also describes WHY those LK-99 researchers sat on their invention for so long, they just couldn't find enough people interested in their material.
Of course I could just publish my idea, but it's possible that no one would be interested in this and I would like to have some money from this to pursue some other ideas without begging people for support.
That is a framing issue. How else do you want to get support? If you find a marketing person to glam it up, and have people come to you wanting support you instead of you going to them. The end result is the same though - you're being supported.
If I had something I think could change the world, I'd beg, borrow, and steal whatever I needed, just to get the equipment to be able to get the patent on it.
> So did you make the engine and notice it's efficiency, or did you find it using first principles where no one else did?
I found it from first principles, I still don't know why no one else thought about it, but it requires sort of splitting and reversing a normal stirling engine inside-out. Since then I've found several attempts at going in that directions which I took, but no one connected all those pieces yet as far as I know. This doesn't require any advanced materials, just a new configuration of existing inventions. For 15 years I've thought why it should not work, but I can't find a flaw in my reasoning, so now I need to verify it with actual working machine, because I know I still might be wrong. If I'm right - this will change energy generation and storage (no more steam turbines and will replace PV panels). If I'm wrong - someone will potentially lose about $10k.
I suggest designing it in CAD and possibly sending it to be metal 3d-printed, which would be cheaper than a whole garage(I feel your pain on not having space... my carport is currently saturated with my business's equipment and I'd really like to build a proper workshop). In addition to less metal shavings around, you'll have access to different geometry which may help your design.
This prototype won't require any 3d-printed metal for now, mostly 3d-printed plastic and some easily made at home metal parts. I already have some cad designs, I have a garage AND dedicated workshop and enough equipment and parts to finish this, but only thing lacking currently is time (I need two jobs until at least end of this year, then it will be better). But thanks for suggestions.
I don't want to whine or excuse myself, I only give an example of why some inventions take a long time to mature into working design. I will make this, just not in a month of real time.
Right now that money would just mean that I can drop second job and do it in a month. Because I can't drop it currently, prototype will just take probably until the end of year, maybe a little later. But I already have everything needed gathered (electronic equipment and "ECU" parts, most of the required materials and some of 3d printed parts cad designs already done), now I only need time to manufacture what needs to be done pretty much manually. I don't need any more money for actual finishing, but thanks for suggestions.
>have any tips
Unfortunately I don't. You raise a really good point though lol. Everyone's idea might seem good as these guys' to probably even experts in the domain itself. I have been profoundly lucky from my spawn point to my current career so I can't give any earnest advice about that. I did briefly work at a semiconductor startup company that similarly had a "crazy brilliant" research idea and did find some funding. It didn't go great.
Like I said, there's a reason I'm not in charge of any VC stuff and I largely don't invest myself lol.
I wish you the best of luck with your invention though, please never give up and never stop dreaming. People like you even if you never produce it push us ALL forward. Thanks for what you do
There are various timelines on HN and elsewhere but it boils down to essentially they saw some blips on sample measurements that they assumed were errors. But the head of their lab thought differently and as he was dying asked his former students to reinvestigate it. They secured funding in 2018 but it was a bumpy road with personality conflicts etc.
wild assumption, but maybe they accidentally made a small sample of high grade LK-99 back in 1999 that displayed the superconductor properties, and they had difficulty replicating. Maybe they spent all these years refining the process
Assuming this is all true, why is it just now coming to light? Did they just not know what they had? (I have not been following this closely, maybe this has already been explained)