I just wrote a comment in another thread that's relevant here too. It looks like the first superconductor paper was released by a rouge researcher, without the agreement of the other two authors or the rest of the LK-99 group. This forced the LK-99 group to rush to publish the official paper, with a cost to quality. The LK-99 group released v2 a week later (on Saturday), and probably will continue to update it. A premature release explains many of the oddities about the two papers
The first paper submitted is titled "The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor." It lists three authors: Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, and Young-Wan Kwon. Its timestamp is Saturday, July 22, 2023 at 07:51:19 UTC. [1]
The second paper submitted is titled "Superconductor Pb10−xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure and mechanism." This paper lists six authors: Sukbae Lee, Jihoon Kim, Hyun-Tak Kim, Sungyeon Im, SooMin An, Keun Ho Auh [2]. Its timestamp is Saturday, July 22nd, 2023 at 10:11:28 UTC, or two hours and twenty minutes after the first paper. The second paper was updated a week later, on Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 01:53:47 UTC,
In both papers the first author is Sukbae Lee and the second author is Jihoon Kim, and in both their affiliation is given as "Quantum Energy Research center, Inc." in Seoul. The first paper posted has Young-Wan Kwon as third author. The second paper does not have Young-Wan Kwon as an author, and has four additional authors with various affiliations.
The second paper appears to have been was prepared in LaTeX, and the first paper appears to have been prepared in Word. The title and abstract of the first paper explicitly claim LK-99 is a room temperature superconductor. The title and abstract of the second paper don't explicitly claim that, though to me some of their terminology suggest LK-99 is a superconductor.
The accusation in [3] is that Young-Wan Kwon published the first paper without the consent of the rest of the LK-99 team, listed himself as third author, and left off the other four authors. The rest of the LK-99 team rushed to stuff what they had into the second paper, and released it 2 hours later [4]. This explains why there are two different papers from the same group submitted on the same day, it explains why the author lists are different between the two, and it explains why the second paper and not the first has been updated. I'm not in the field and have only read each paper once, so I'm not certain, but I'm betting it also explains a lot of the mistakes and messy bits of the papers.
This makes cautiously optimistic that this might be for real [5]. The papers on arXiv as of Monday night are consistent with a research group that succeeded in producing and identifying a room temperature superconductor using a fabrication process that is a bit tricky, and who were then forced to publish prematurely. There's nowhere near enough evidence to conclude LK-99 is a room temperature superconductor. But one failed replication doesn't prove LK-99 isn't a superconductor - if the fabrication process is finicky we'd expect to see a few dozen failed reproductions and a few successful reproductions.
Edit: Here's an appendix to bring us up to date to Monday night U.S. time. Two additional papers have been published in response to the LK-99 claims, for a total of four.
The 3rd paper is an unsuccessful attempt to reproduce the LK-99 group's results experimentally. It is titled "Semiconducting transport in Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O sintered from Pb2SO5 and Cu3P." 9 authors, all affiliated with the Materials Science department of Beihang University in Beijing. Timestamp Monday July 31st at 16:13:05 UTC. [6]
The fourth paper is a set of simulations of LK-99 that observes some similarities between LK-99 and other materials that are high-temperature superconductors. It is titled "Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in copper-substituted lead phosphate apatite." A single author, who is affiliated with Materials Science at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California. Published on Monday, July 31st, 2023 at 17:58:17 UTC. [7]
[4] Though I don't think we know publicly whether the all authors agreed to publish the second paper, either. It seems equally plausible that some portion of the group rushed to publish, or even that one author published it independently.
[5] And by cautiously optimistic, I really mean "extremely excited and nervous, enough to stay up until 3am collating arXiv timestamps"
> The accusation is that Young-Wan Kwon published the first paper without the consent of the rest of the LK-99 team, listed himself as third author, and left off the other four. Two hours later, the rest of the LK-99 team stuffed as much as they had into the second paper, and released it as soon as possible.
Kwon has already left the company early this year according to recent interviews. Moreover a supposed private communication with Auh [1] does suggest that Kwon was already offered an authorship in the joint 7-author paper but never replied back until the first arXiv submission went public. I don't know what Kwon actually wants out of all of this stunt, but it seems clear that there was already a big gap between Kwon and other authors and this "leak" only surfaced the gap along with LK-99.
> I don't know what Kwon actually wants out of all of this stunt
He may be just a grifter. Or he may have played a key role in the discovery but was going to be put as the 6th author (at best) in the joint paper. If so, he has already gained much more recognition than he would have otherwise.
Yeah, but that is quite amateurish. Just having the paper out first does not establish priority for the Nobel. What you need is the first paper with solid proof. It has happened more than once before that the guys with the second or third paper won the Nobel because the earlier paper was too weak.
To add a concrete example: Randy Hulet at Rice claimed BEC first, then Wieman and Cornell at Colorado, then Ketterle at MIT. Wieman, Cornell and Ketterle shared the Nobel. Hulet was passed over, because his data was judged insufficient to establish his claim.
Scientific collaborations have gotten steadily larger over time. Groups are no longer 3 people exchanging letters, and the 3 person limitation makes no sense.
>Who in their right mind would reward only 3 people out of 6?
In this case, the discovery, if it’s real, could get the awards for Physics and also for Chemistry. Because it’s such a once in a century level of scientific breakthrough
Perhaps Physics award mainly for a theoretical explanation and Chemistry award mainly for the experimental process
Therefore, six authors might be honored. It’s unlikely, but it’s a solution if the authors deserve it
Arbitrary punishing rules of the Nobel prize is part of the fun of science. As far as I can tell either wise they'd have dropped all these insane rules ages ago.
Perhaps with all the lower-hanging scientific fruit now getting more scarce, it makes sense to start allowing for a larger number of contributors to be recognized, even if they don't necessarily share in the prize money. Why not start such a new tradition when such a practical and wide-ranging technology comes into play? (assuming this is eventually validated)
Fun thought experiment, but I would probably go with something like the Haber Process to create ammonia. Enormous industrial applications which led to a boon in fertilizer development and feeding of humanity.
"This makes me way more excited this discovery miiight be for real."
I agree it is a strong indicator, that there might be more to it, when there is already fighting about the rewards. It is a shame though, if it really works, there should be enough fame (and money) for everyone involved.
I mean, a worldwide lossles energy grid, high speed trains, fusion plants and floating cars do sound nice .. assuming the material is real and can be mass produced eventually. Till then, I remain sceptical, though.
It's only a superconductor at milliamps, so we'll need another material for your high energy examples. The biggest deal would be providing a trajectory to materials science.
If it would be reliable working at milliamps, I am sure it can be put to practical use in my sci fi scenarios eventually (1000 cables with 1 milliamps each should add up to 1 amp?). Of course, unless it all just is a quirky side effect, that can never be put to practical use.
Only some applications require flexible cables. All of "my" use cases should be fine with using ceramics. I really don't think this will be the problem ...
In case I was missunderstood: it won't be the problem to use ceramic, compared to making mass produced room temperatur superconductors. This will be hard either way, if currently no other lab can even reproduce it.
"Competition in academia is so vicious because the stakes are so small."
think about this one though...
wonder what the real story is?
I remember reading about the story of the transistor and the hijinks by shockley:
"Bardeen and Brattain demonstrated the transistor device to Bell Lab officials Dec. 23, 1947. Shockley was reported to have called it "a magnificent Christmas present." But Shockley himself was not present when it happened and was said to be bitter over losing out on that day.
He had his revenge, though. Shockley continued to work on the idea and refine it. In early 1948, he came up with the bipolar or junction transistor, a superior device that took over from the point-contact type."
> It looks like the first superconductor paper was released by a rouge researcher, without the agreement of the other two authors or the rest of the LK-99 group
Please do cite any evidence, beyond a mere accusation.
The evidence is all the weird bits about how the paper was published, and other internet comments about the third author's relationship to the group.
The authorship of the papers is relevant to the science here, since both papers have quality issues, so I wrote out the accusation as best I understood it. The evidence is nowhere near enough to prove anything and largely rumor right now, but I do think it's suggestive.
The first paper submitted is titled "The First Room-Temperature Ambient-Pressure Superconductor." It lists three authors: Sukbae Lee, Ji-Hoon Kim, and Young-Wan Kwon. Its timestamp is Saturday, July 22, 2023 at 07:51:19 UTC. [1]
The second paper submitted is titled "Superconductor Pb10−xCux(PO4)6O showing levitation at room temperature and atmospheric pressure and mechanism." This paper lists six authors: Sukbae Lee, Jihoon Kim, Hyun-Tak Kim, Sungyeon Im, SooMin An, Keun Ho Auh [2]. Its timestamp is Saturday, July 22nd, 2023 at 10:11:28 UTC, or two hours and twenty minutes after the first paper. The second paper was updated a week later, on Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 01:53:47 UTC,
In both papers the first author is Sukbae Lee and the second author is Jihoon Kim, and in both their affiliation is given as "Quantum Energy Research center, Inc." in Seoul. The first paper posted has Young-Wan Kwon as third author. The second paper does not have Young-Wan Kwon as an author, and has four additional authors with various affiliations.
The second paper appears to have been was prepared in LaTeX, and the first paper appears to have been prepared in Word. The title and abstract of the first paper explicitly claim LK-99 is a room temperature superconductor. The title and abstract of the second paper don't explicitly claim that, though to me some of their terminology suggest LK-99 is a superconductor.
The accusation in [3] is that Young-Wan Kwon published the first paper without the consent of the rest of the LK-99 team, listed himself as third author, and left off the other four authors. The rest of the LK-99 team rushed to stuff what they had into the second paper, and released it 2 hours later [4]. This explains why there are two different papers from the same group submitted on the same day, it explains why the author lists are different between the two, and it explains why the second paper and not the first has been updated. I'm not in the field and have only read each paper once, so I'm not certain, but I'm betting it also explains a lot of the mistakes and messy bits of the papers.
This makes cautiously optimistic that this might be for real [5]. The papers on arXiv as of Monday night are consistent with a research group that succeeded in producing and identifying a room temperature superconductor using a fabrication process that is a bit tricky, and who were then forced to publish prematurely. There's nowhere near enough evidence to conclude LK-99 is a room temperature superconductor. But one failed replication doesn't prove LK-99 isn't a superconductor - if the fabrication process is finicky we'd expect to see a few dozen failed reproductions and a few successful reproductions.
Edit: Here's an appendix to bring us up to date to Monday night U.S. time. Two additional papers have been published in response to the LK-99 claims, for a total of four.
The 3rd paper is an unsuccessful attempt to reproduce the LK-99 group's results experimentally. It is titled "Semiconducting transport in Pb10-xCux(PO4)6O sintered from Pb2SO5 and Cu3P." 9 authors, all affiliated with the Materials Science department of Beihang University in Beijing. Timestamp Monday July 31st at 16:13:05 UTC. [6]
The fourth paper is a set of simulations of LK-99 that observes some similarities between LK-99 and other materials that are high-temperature superconductors. It is titled "Origin of correlated isolated flat bands in copper-substituted lead phosphate apatite." A single author, who is affiliated with Materials Science at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California. Published on Monday, July 31st, 2023 at 17:58:17 UTC. [7]
[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12008
[2] https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.12037
[3] This comment was originally written in reply to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36952499
[4] Though I don't think we know publicly whether the all authors agreed to publish the second paper, either. It seems equally plausible that some portion of the group rushed to publish, or even that one author published it independently.
[5] And by cautiously optimistic, I really mean "extremely excited and nervous, enough to stay up until 3am collating arXiv timestamps"
[6] arXiv link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.16802 HN link": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36951140
[7] arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.16892 HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36951815