Room-temperature superconductor

[Psi]

But I think it's unfair to call it a scam or busted until after others have tried to replicate it and failed.

I did not call it a scam, and was even generous toward the research at the end of the video.
I was clearly busting the main video on their website.
Call it clickbait if you want, that's fine by me. But I don't see it as much different to any of my existing BUSTED videos.

It was the 'busted' in the title that I was talking about.
Only if someone watches the video do they find out the title was clickbait.
The difference is where a video is talking about brand new science that is on very shaky ground and could get labeled fake and easily burried. In this case there's no problem since 100's of people are likely trying to reproduce the results as we speak. But that is not always the case.

I don't disagree, with anything you said.
I just worry in general that we, humanity, might miss some great discovery because well-known scientists or people with influence jump to saying things like "It's totally impossible" or "It's a scam/fraud" without even trying to reproduce it. I do understand why, because 99.99% of the time if is fake, a scam, or just wrong, but that doesn't make it ok the 0.01% of times it's not and gets labeled as such and never investigated.
 

What I like about this particular story is that for the first time in quite a while, scientists are acting like scientists. Being critical and skeptical is a joy to behold.

yep, spot on. Critical and skeptical is exactly the right way to approach a claim like this.
I just get annoyed when the word scam/fake/busted gets thrown around without any evidence to back that up.
When scam/fake/busted get thrown around one could argue there is more evidence that it's real because that at-least has a scientific paper behind it, a claim that it's fake/impossible/scam without any evidence has nothing behind it at all.

[EEVblog]

It was the 'busted' in the title that I was talking about.
Only if someone watches the video do they find out the title was clickbait.

The LK-99 group were indeed BUSTED by making and promoting that video. It's as laughably BUSTED as anything else I've done.
And you didn't have to watch the vidoe to find out what the BUSTED part refered to, if you actually read the description you'd know.
Take the Batteriser for example, their marketing claims were BUSTED, but the ASIC chip they produced is real and actually has real use in the industry.
"BUSTED" is the title people expect when I expose something dumb in a product.
You and others would probably (not probably, I know for a fact because it's happened countless times) still complain if I made the title more lengthy and explainatory. Like "Korean LK-99 Ambient Temperature Superconductor Demo Video BUSTED!"
I even used an accurate thumbnail that showed the thing I was busting.
Sorry, but if you are too lazy to read the description then I'm not going to take your complaint seriously.

I just get annoyed when the word scam/fake/busted gets thrown around without any evidence to back that up.

I made no such claims. I busted the laughable video and that was it. In fact I was rather generous toward the possibility there may be something to this in the video.

[rteodor]

Maybe this is a language barrier thing. You know, they have something with better conductivity and in the next iteration they will get even higher conductivity and call it hyperconductor ... and in the next the ultraconductor ... and then switch to letters because they ran out of superlatives. Like with the naming of the radio bands .
Superconductivity in their minds would mean just better conductivity instead of zero resistance in ours.
If this is true, then I can only lay down on my chair and think: what social-media did to our brains ?

[Psi]

I just get annoyed when the word scam/fake/busted gets thrown around without any evidence to back that up.

I made no such claims.

Ops, i just rechecked the video and it was the text in the thumbnail image that I was referring too.
The "Superconductor Busted" text makes the claim that the superconductor is busted.
Is it just clickbait, sure, but it's also making a general claim that the superconductor everyone is hearing about is busted, unless one investigates the video or description further to find out its just a specific video.
I've never been a big fan of clickbait in general.

[Brumby]

Maybe this is a language barrier thing. You know, they have something with better conductivity and in the next iteration they will get even higher conductivity and call it hyperconductor ... and in the next the ultraconductor ... and then switch to letters because they ran out of superlatives. Like with the naming of the radio bands .
Superconductivity in their minds would mean just better conductivity instead of zero resistance in ours.
If this is true, then I can only lay down on my chair and think: what social-media did to our brains ?

While your attempt to reconcile the various parties may be well intended, I beg to differ.

As I understand it, the term "superconductivity" has a very clear meaning and has had for more than a century.  As such, anyone - especially those working in the field - should be very familiar with that meaning.  While there can be issues with language barriers, whatever word, phrase or pictographs are used to denote it, this is a concept that is very well established.  To use the term in any way other than this is disingenuous at best, if not straight out deceptive.  IMHO

These days, even the public who have half an idea about the subject will be expecting the same thing as those with a PhD.


I know what I am waiting for to either prove or disprove the claim.

[EEVblog]

Ops, i just rechecked the video and it was the text in the thumbnail image that I was referring too.
The "Superconductor Busted" text makes the claim that the superconductor is busted.
Is it just clickbait, sure, but it's also making a general claim that the superconductor everyone is hearing about is busted, unless one investigates the video or description further to find out its just a specific video.
I've never been a big fan of clickbait in general.

The problems are:
a) every Youtuber always does "click bait". You have to stand out from every other video out there.
b) You have to include in your thumbnail stuff that is relevant to the video and nothing more so it's not unreadable. So the more lengthy example of "Superconductor Demo Video" gets shortened to just "Superconductor" so it's actually visible and (along with the description) people know it's at least related the recent superconductor news.
c) It doesn't matter what we put in the thumbnail, the title, the pinned comment, or the desciption, there will always, ALWAYS be someone who complains that it's "clickbait".

e.g. if I actually put "Superconductor Demo Video" in the thumbnail, there would be people who wouldn't complain that I did actually try to make the superconductor.

So ironically we have to make "clickbait" in way that does not waste people's time clicking on it.
There is absolutely no way I can do a thumbnail or title for this thing without SOME people being upset that it's "click bait" and not what they were expecting, one way or the other.
If I left out the word debunk, I'd get people complaining I didn't call it debunk, because I clearly debunked the demo video, 100%, no question.
If I include the word debunk then I get people upset that it's not debunking the ENITRE THING.
It's impossible.

[Marco]

There should really be an online journal for paper verification (fail or success).

A few years back there was a similar hype about pyrolithic graphite. I'm sure a lot of labs tried and failed to replicate, but all that's in the open is the original papers and not write ups of the failed trials to replicate.

[EEVblog]

They changed the video description!
It's no longer a copper plate, it's an enriched uranium 235 plate! 

I'm no chemist, but it's a very strange material choice to demonstrate your superconductor film. And it's one of the most controlled materials on earth, so the cynic in me says it's very convenient if you don't want people to verify.
I can't help but think they are just taking the piss in response to my video.
In that case it's rather funny and I tip my tap to the joke. But when the whole world is questioning the credibility of your research, is that such a good idea?
But I'm open to someone explaining why you'd use enriched uranium 235 for such a thing?

[Brumby]

They changed the video description!
It's no longer a copper plate, it's an enriched uranium 235 plate! 

 

[Bud]

I thought a scientist would know a difference between copper and uranium when originally published the video. 
Now you nuclear experts please tell why it was needed to use uranium carrier for testing magnetic property of a material. Why not to deposit the material on a piece of paper?

[Brumby]

I thought a scientist would know a difference between copper and uranium when originally published the video. 

I'm no scientist ... but ... isn't the disc the wrong colour for uranium?

[Dr. Frank]

I thought a scientist would know a difference between copper and uranium when originally published the video. 

I'm no scientist ... but ... isn't the disc the wrong colour for uranium?

Pictures of U235 discs show that it is of grey color, similar to lead.
Why should they use enriched U235, which is commonly known to be used for atomic bombs?
That makes no sense, and I can't see any real physical reason for using such a critical substance.

At that time, we have DC-sputtered our YBCO  films on pre-heated ceramic substrates of SrTiO₃ for ac measurements of resistivity and susceptibility.
The acceleration of the particles towards the substrate worked well, despite the latter is non-conductive.
That might be a reason why one wants to use a metal as a substrate for the deposited film, but copper is quite fine for that purpose.

So if they changed the description right now, that is not a good sign in regard of "scientific conduct".. and U235 could as well show the very same induction effect like copper.
Frank 

[switchabl]

The screenshot does not appear to be from the video included in the OP (nor from the same channel). That one was posted in January, has more than 150k views and still says "copper plate" for me. I don't know if Dave is just having some fun or someone else is. Either way, U235 is obviously just trolling.

[EEVblog]

The screenshot does not appear to be from the video included in the OP (nor from the same channel). That one was posted in January, has more than 150k views and still says "copper plate" for me. I don't know if Dave is just having some fun or someone else is. Either way, U235 is obviously just trolling.

Explained here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1555-lk99-ambient-temperature-superconductor-busted!/msg4989862/#msg4989862
It's not me, there are two legit q-centre channels with verified business email addresses at their domain name.

[EEVblog]

Someone on twitter mention you can change your youtube channel business email address without re-verifcation?
If so then I suspect the troll is either a member of this forum or a viewer...

[gnuarm]

I thought a scientist would know a difference between copper and uranium when originally published the video. 

I'm no scientist ... but ... isn't the disc the wrong colour for uranium?

Pictures of U235 discs show that it is of grey color, similar to lead.
Why should they use enriched U235, which is commonly known to be used for atomic bombs?
That makes no sense, and I can't see any real physical reason for using such a critical substance.

At that time, we have DC-sputtered our YBCO  films on pre-heated ceramic substrates of SrTiO₃ for ac measurements of resistivity and susceptibility.
The acceleration of the particles towards the substrate worked well, despite the latter is non-conductive.
That might be a reason why one wants to use a metal as a substrate for the deposited film, but copper is quite fine for that purpose.

So if they changed the description right now, that is not a good sign in regard of "scientific conduct".. and U235 could as well show the very same induction effect like copper.
Frank

This is the failure in the analysis of this video.  This video is not part of the scientific paper about LK-99.  It's something posted on Youtube that no one really knows much about.  Presently, it's a lightning rod for criticism, only because the people doing the criticizing don't have the chops to discuss the research paper. 

This is no different from the discussion about the Titan submersible.  Lots of discussion, but very little information. 

[daqq]

but very little information.

That's kind of the whole problem.
 - The communication from the authors is non-existent
 - the site's offline whenever I look at it due to excessive traffic
 - the videos are unlisted and at best document strange things that are not that telling of superconductivity
 - instead of sending samples to other institutions that could easily and quickly verify their claims, we're getting nothing
 - ...

If this turns out to be a real superconductor, it might just be the most poorly initially communicated thing to ever win the Nobel Prize.

I really want this to be real - I really want a Josephson Junction standard on my desk 

[SiliconWizard]

I want perpetual motion on my desk.

[Dr. Frank]

... Presently, it's a lightning rod for criticism, only because the people doing the criticizing don't have the chops to discuss the research paper. 

At first, those are no "Research Papers", as those document appeared on a random archive server, not on an official physics or material research journal.
It was also not officially submitted for Peer Review, and they are lacking meta data about the status of this research, like date of publishing, where to be published, and so on.
I guess, I judged these, let's say 'preliminary' papers by scientifically analyzing the content based on the elaborate research we've done decades ago. That's enough of expertise to be very sceptical in this case.

Today I've found several measurements of resistivity and susceptibility from identical samples of sputtered YBCO films from way back then, which fit together in T_c and shape of the SC transition.
I only can stress the fact, that in this case, especially their magnetic measurements were mediocre, and do not fit at all to the rest. They also give no explanation on that diverging behavior.
Frank   

[gnuarm]

but very little information.

That's kind of the whole problem.
 - The communication from the authors is non-existent
 - the site's offline whenever I look at it due to excessive traffic
 - the videos are unlisted and at best document strange things that are not that telling of superconductivity
 - instead of sending samples to other institutions that could easily and quickly verify their claims, we're getting nothing
 - ...

If this turns out to be a real superconductor, it might just be the most poorly initially communicated thing to ever win the Nobel Prize.

I really want this to be real - I really want a Josephson Junction standard on my desk 

Why not sit back, relax, and wait for the full story to come out? 

I see the posts about the Titan submersible have finally petered out.  That was literally 99% imagination and 1% posting of information. 

[EEVblog]

The rest of the internet took hold of those videos and propagated them virally. You apparently took the internet's viral promotion of the clip as the entire group "promoting a fraud."
Seems a little careless, but YouTube's audiences have forgiven far worse from other creators.

When did I ever use the word "fraud"?
It was literally the #1 news story trending in science.
I wasn't actually going to do a vidoe on this until I actually saw the video promoted on the front page of their own commercial website.
This was not a video that was leaked and shared around virally.
When you promote stuff on your commercial web site then you are absolutely open to criticisim of that, no ifs no buts.

[EEVblog]

This is the failure in the analysis of this video.  This video is not part of the scientific paper about LK-99.  It's something posted on Youtube that no one really knows much about.

It is promoted by THEM on their OWN website front page. Why should this be out of bounds for criticism? Why?

[Psi]

Nothing wrong with criticism, and the video in question warranted lots of it!
Potential collateral damage of new discoveries is the only thing I have any issues with, but in this case there is no risk of any collateral damage. The discovery is being replicated currently (or attempted) and we will find out if it's real or not.

[EEVblog]

Nothing wrong with criticism, and the video in question warranted lots of it!
Potential collateral damage of new discoveries is the only thing I have any issues with, but in this case there is no risk of any collateral damage. The discovery is being replicated currently (or attempted) and will find out if its real or not.

Exactly. I do not understand the criticism of my video from this standpoint.
The "clickbait" claim, and people expecting to see me to "bust" the whole thing, I can at least undersatnd where people are coming from.
But I've had people basically telling me to shut up and that I shouldn't have a posted a video at all even mentioning that demo video. As if they are protecting some sacred cow I dared criticise in any way.

[Psi]

The "clickbait" claim, and people expecting to see me to "bust" the whole thing, I can at least undersatnd where people are coming from.

I think most of the criticism of your video came from that,  but there will always be the 'crazies' who take issue when someone says the sky is blue.  And any new discovery or fringe science always attracts more of those.

The video just seemed too get more criticism than a typical busting video because the two groups were mixed together.