cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/2999441
I’m not plugged into all the hype around lk99, but this person seems to be a nice balance of hype, technical background and eagerness to not be wrong about things.
They seem to make a good and simple case for why the superconductor possibility is slipping away (as far as mostly internet hype based replication attempts go)
There likely won’t be, just like there’s never any follow-up on the solar roadways people getting millions in government funding (so it must be real), or the perpetual motion generator being outright fraud, or the firehose of utter BS battery “breakthrough” stories. Sensationalism gets headlines, boring retractions don’t.
And just to be very clear about my position and why I’m not overestimating anyone, breakthroughs like what was claimed with LK-99 rarely happen at all. Research is slow, arduous, filled with dead ends and side quests. Real development in the real world happens with incremental improvement almost all of the time rather than some “eureka!” moment. What I would expect from a group that has discovered a method to turn lead into gold is a pile of gold before they ever mention it. Similarly, if someone claims to have a room temperature, atmospheric pressure superconductor, they’ll have followed their own process more than once and taken more precise notes the second time around.