Talk:LK-99

Style questions

MOS:CLAIMED

Two edits in Special:Diff/1167517849/1167516509 removed use of the citation {{r|padavic-c-20230726}} (causing a syntax error) and introduced new wording at odds with MOS:CLAIMED in the Wikipedia Manual of Style. These have been temporary reverted in Special:Diff/1167521503. (Would encourage Osunpokeh to attempt their edits again in a way that do not break the page or introduce problematic wording.) —Sladen (talk) 07:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Many secondary sources are using the word "claimed" or "is claiming" so don't be scared to use it here too. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:53, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, such statements (if necessary) can be specifically quoted and attributed to an individual. The phrasings added by the posted diff were "Media reports … mentioned" and "Scientists speculated that" (ie. WP:VAGUE, WP:WEASEL). —Sladen (talk) 09:23, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

"And it is at this point that we have an entirely new physics..."

Reflecting on articles about various miracle-cure physics and science articles: we could use a style for tagging / talking about claimed advances that deviate dramatically from existing models, with limited intervening discoveries or confirmed theoretical underpinning. <longer style rant + comments moved to User:Sj/miracles> – SJ + 09:17, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Elusiveness of negative results

2607: above suggested we would know soon whether this has "panned out or not". This may be true if there are a series of positive results. But if there are only negative results, this is unlikely, as negative claims are hard to prove. Some of the developments that might be expected even if results are negative for weeks:

Inconclusive support

• Through confirmation bias and multiple comparisons, a number of others will also find potentially weakly-supporting evidence of the desired outcome
  • One or two labs will report they have a partial replication but will not publish their results, perhaps "to double check that their results are correct". They may never publish anything, but that initial statement can keep hope alive for years.
  • Some replicators will report instances that they claim show weakly statistically significant support for the breakthrough claims, or at least for one signal. Rather than taking extra care to rule out sources of error, or making sure they can replicate their own experiment under a range of setups and initial conditions, they will only note that as an intended followup. (This followup may take years, or for various reasons may never happen, or never be reported as widely as the initial hopeful result.)
  • A small community of enthusiasts will start doing casual replications and reporting their results, again without sparing too much thought for the implications of multiple comparisons.
  • Someone will produce an informal meta-study of results from these three groups that show any positive indicators for the hoped-for result. They will come up with theories about what those experimental setups had in common that "got it right", leading to another round of experiments.

Inconclusive disconfirmation

• The most careful replication efforts will not succeed. But lack of success isn't the same as failure - maybe they didn't do it carefully enough!
  • Many groups w/ varying experimental precision will try to replicate the work. None of them will have obvious success, or will confirm non-superconductivity explanations for early observations
  • The discoverers will come up with novel reasons, based on new unknown physics, why this is a sign that this material is still close to a superconductor, and the space of similar materials should be searched even more carefully. They will be more sure than ever that their approach will work, and will continue patenting and fundraising for an expanded effort.
  • The discoverers will update their method to address specific arguments against their approach, and to make even purer samples. They may start to cite the positive facets of inconclusive results from others, or the informal meta-study, in slide decks.
  • Through citogenesis, this can be glossed as "the latest breakthrough, which could revolutionize society, that needs replication and further confirmation" without independent confirmation of method, underlying theory, or observation of the expected core results; and also without the discoverers even developing an unambiguous demonstration they can show to other experts in their field.

– SJ + 20:53, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

SJ's comment looks like it would be a valuable addition to the Reproducibility article, with a link from this one. Frank MacCrory (talk) 02:43, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Related comment by Sabine Hossenfelder - Wild guess: the first reproduction attempts will find the material isn't sc, there will be some discussion about whether the stuff was synthesized correctly, then we'll never hear about it again.

Partial success: style

Right now we have three partial success entries in the replication table. All have shown video of a tiny and thin flake, which is perhaps 100x lighter than the object shown w/ partial levitation in the initial paper. Pablogelo has glossed them as 'Preliminary results unavailable' and not 'partial success' which seems right, since this is a minimal result, with no data shared beyond grainy video. (Also: all labs tried to produce much larger quantity than those flakes, so there is likely be a reason they're all showing such tiny pieces through a magnifying glass; we should assume that larger fragments don't show this property. Also, none have showed their flakes alongside flakes of known diamagnets like graphite for comparing strength of interaction.) – SJ + 17:08, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

The color scheme of the partial success entries is terrible: On many monitors, partial success and partial failure is completely indistinguishable! 2001:A61:1226:5801:44DA:67F9:7860:698B (talk) 16:52, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Miscellaneous suggestions

• Mention the existence or lack of other apatite-related superconductors. see File:Timeline of Superconductivity from 1900 to 2015.svg

  Related: temperature-induced phase transitions in similar materials; some observers have written that observed changes may match general but not sc phase transition. (Mimetite, &c)

• Consider an ITN nomination at some point? (osunpokeh)
• Once there are peer-reviewed pubs, there can be a separate list of those ordered by date. So far there are none.

Less reliable or incomplete replication reports

Removed two lines from the article (no information on the researcher, lab, or any followup; minimal detail in videos). Please add any other questionable replication reports here; we can check on them to see if they have published anything more serious. See also this Wordpress and this forum thread for sporadically-updated lists. – SJ + 17:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Added 2 questionable replication reports as per request to do so. ShotoKye (talk) 23:14, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Other potential replications

Any reported replication efforts with no results, or with teaser images/videos but no results, can go here. They can be moved back if/when they publish.

As the number of published experiments grows, the article should probably just summarize the most notable, but we can keep track of the longer list of verifiable experiments by notable people/labs here or on a subpage. – SJ + 09:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Current grounds for inclusion on the main page (I'm at least working by this):

- arXiv available OR

- Working with South Korean verification committee.OR

( - Confirmed by press / media to be academic institution or working with academic institution. AND

(- Results (partial or otherwise) AND at least 1 instance of a publication covering the attempt in press / media. OR

- 3(+) different publications covered attempt in press / media.

:)

) ShotoKye (talk) 00:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Better, in my view:

– arXiv available AND (covered in press OR detailed, non-duplicative work by established lab)

– OR confirmed by media to be from an established institution or working with one AND has results and published method & details AND at least 1 media outlet covering the results

– OR confirmed by media to be from an established institution, who have described their work in great detail if not explicitly in an arxiv-style preprint, and results covered by 3+ independent RSes. – SJ + 03:58, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Should [these] guys be included too. Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester MA in the US. Ittiz (talk) 13:17, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Feel free to add them to the table below if an official university account is describing their work in progress. Not if they've just mentioned that they are planning to attempt a replication.

@Achenar31:, re: the supposed Wuhan claim, please add speculative replications to the table below, not the one on the article itself. Until such a test has been confirmed by a verified account associated with a research lab / university, and reported on by a reliable source for the subject (not a random blog covering the topic), or until they publish a preprint covering their methods and results, they don't belong in the article proper. – SJ + 21:47, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Good, will add it on monday/tuesday when probably the arxiv comes out. Achenar31 (talk) 22:19, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Group	Country	Status	Result	Notes
Shanghai University	China	Unpublished	Synthesized LK-99 powder, saw no diamagnetism.	News report: on-site interview by reporter Not Included: unpublished, limited media coverage, very simple contribution.
Qufu Normal University	China	Unpublished	LK-99 sample had non-zero resistance.	Press coverage: Not Included: ?
AGH University of Krakow	Poland	Unpublished	Images showing partial levitation of a small sample in response to magnetic field. No significant electrical conductivity observed.	Photographs shared on Twitter: Team including Prof. Konrad Szaciłowski and Dr. Agnieszka Podborska at AGH University of Krakow. Media Coverage: Not Included: unpublished, limited media coverage, no major contribution.
Lebedev Physics Institute	Russia	Unpublished	Structure confirmed with X-ray diffraction. No diamagnetism was observed. High resistance observed with 4-point probes method. Resistance increases when temperature decreases.	Statement by Lebedev Physics Institute: Press coverage: Not Included: unpublished, limited-reliability media coverage.
National Taiwan University	Taiwan	Unpublished	Diamagnetism observed. Non-zero resistance, no superconductivity.	Li-min, et al. Live stream: Press coverage: Not Included: unpublished, limited media coverage, no major contribution.
University of Wollongong	Australia	Un­known	—	Dr. Xiaolin Wang et al. Not Included: No results / lacks media reporting.
Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University (Prague)	Czechia	Started on 2023-08-03	A false mixture of copper and phosphorus in the ratio of 1:3 instead of 3:1 lead to an unsuccessful synthesis. A new attempt is ongoing.	Department of Condensed Matter Physics Not included: Lacks media reporting.
University of Science and Technology of China	China	Results unavailable	8/1: Video showing diamagnetism of small sample.	Video uploaded to Zhihu. Not included: Lacks media reporting.
Iris Alexandra & Moscow Engineering Physics Institute	Russia	Unpublished	Photograph of small sample levitating in glass tube.	Sample synthesis and photograph by pseudonym Iris Alexandra. Posting on Twitter. Claimed by this account to have analysis by Moscow Engineering Physics Institute. Press coverage: Not included: No confirmation from media of link with institute.
Wuhan University of Science and Technology	China	Unpublished	Very brief video of levitation of sample, allegedly showcasing flux pinning.	Claimed to have been produced by Zhang Xiang at Wuhan University; not confirmed by Xiang or the university; no further context or details. Not included: Lacks media reporting.
Queensland University of Technology	Australia	Unpublished	Not Reported	Not included: No results / lacks media reporting.
Theoretical studies
Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai and IIT Madras	India	Preliminary	Theorises a mechanism for superconductivity involving copper chains in LK-99.	arXiv: G. Baskaran Not included: No results / lacks media reporting.
KAIST and Johns Hopkins	South Korea, United States	Preliminary	DFT Analysis of a two-orbital Hubbard model, concluding it would not exhibit superconductivity, but not ruling out other Cu dopings.	arXiv: Oh & Zhang Not included: No results / lacks media reporting.
University of California, Irvine and University of Toronto	United States, Canada	Preliminary	Proposed a minimal tight-binding model which reproduces the main features of the flat bands in LK-99.	arXiv: Omid Tavakol & Thomas Scaffidi Not included: No results / lacks media reporting.

Graph

Southeast University

• 8/2: Graph of data from resistance measurement

Confusing graph in isolation. There's no clear dropoff, no clear T_c, and a lot of noise at low resistance. While superconducting measurements regularly go down to 1e-7 Ohms, here noise dominates at 1e-5 Ohms. They mention in the preprint the artefact around 230-250K could be sensor error. We should caption carefully.

References from above

References

Less reliable sources

Let's use this section to discuss reliability of specific sources.

Non-scientist overviews on non-science websites

• Tom's Hardware: Removed one ref from here (it wasn't the only ref for any claim, and made statements contradicted by physicists in other sources).

They continue to publish unreliable summaries, getting physical + experimental details wrong. Definitely not reliable in this context.

• Nimo Rotem : A hoax. He admitted on Facebook (before deleting the post, just moments ago) that what his video shows is not LK-99 but “a mix of metal powders and a binder” which he at refers to as “JK-99”.
• Space Battles Forums and eirifu (aggregators of replication reports): Removed. Do please dig into the source the users of spacebattles are themselves citing, rather than cite directly from Space Battles. [see also in Chinese: salye)

  ShotoKye (you and I are the ones mainly adding/removing this): We shouldn't source any particular entry to one of those, since the underlying sources should be cited directly. But we should cite each of them once on the page to indicate that they have been referenced by editors contributing to the page. Perhaps under an External Links section. – SJ + 13:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC) OK, I took a stab. 16:10, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

  I think adding the tables as external links might be beneficial, but am unsure how to do it in a way that would satisfy guidelines. Reference to the Vice article that covers the tables is possibly sufficient. ShotoKye (talk) 13:30, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Scientists, not obviously notable?

• Unidentified Superconducting Objects as articulation of the steady stream of likely-seeming high-temperature candidates which don't resolve as sc
• Examples of thin-film superconductivity (ex: [1]), to help clarify that what's normally referred to as the upper bound on high-T sc doesn't mean "for any sample, however small or thin". – SJ + 14:02, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Please remember to avoid using primary sources

A tweet, facebook, bilibi, youtube isn't a reliable source and should be avoided when updating this article, multiple users are forgetting it when editing the section on replications, please refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources I would suggest a mod to watch that section more thoroughly and a clean-up is needed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pablogelo (talk • contribs) 17:10, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that we must be careful. Primary sources do suffice to demonstrate 'X claims Y'. We still have to decide which such claims are notable enough to include. I don't think it should be enough that someone claims to be in a lab from a notable institution. But a verified member of a lab by a notable researcher in a related field, who is posting regular updates, seems sufficient to confirm that a replication is happening at that lab, and to include in the table. On balance I think including the "original research" inline flag for those lines is a fine comrpomise, until that lab publishes something more formal about their method + results. – SJ + 17:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

"Original research" means the Wikipedia editor is the source. That's probably not what you want. Maybe {{better source needed}} instead. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:31, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, thanks Bri. I didn't use that template + will replace in future with bsn. – SJ + 15:54, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I've been turning to this article a few times a day for the past few days, and one reason is that it's the only place where one can get a broad sense of where various replication efforts stand. I presume that in due course, we'll want to tighten up the sourcing, but I just want to make the case that in a fast breaking story of such potential importance, it's more ok than normal that we accept sources that meet some basic sanity-check standards even if we know that as the facts become clearer over time, a lot of these preliminary reports won't be all that important to keep.

I fully agree with this sentiment by Moonjail: "Indeed, arXiv is perennially discussed and considered generally unreliable" in terms of Wikipedia claiming that there has or has not been successful replication. So we should be very clear to readers about that. But at the same time, it is of encyclopedia interest that such-and-such reputable person from such-and-such reputable lab claimed thus-and-so. Because of the lack of peer review, the nature of arXiv as a source is similar to that of a tweet by a politician if you see what I mean - that a politician tweeted it, doesn't mean that it's true, but it can be of encyclopedic interest that they did tweet it. WP:Twitter is a useful though obviously imperect analogy.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:26, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

As long as secondary sources do not take note of a Arxiv publication (or, to borrow from your equivalence, a politician's tweet), it stays out. Otherwise, not only RS but also DUE is violated. And, we are not in the business of providing breaking news. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:32, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't think that's the right rule of thumb here. Per Graeme, aggressively removing what are clearly credible reports from clearly credible institutions on this rule would be mistaken, especially when secondary sources do exist and are being put in, but even if they aren't yet out but obviously will be soon enough. There's a big difference between a Russian cat woman on twitter and a preprint and press release from a team at MIT. A rule that would say those are not reliable sources, but a newspaper is, in this context, wouldn't lead us to a proper encyclopedic approach.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:20, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

sorry about my edit earlier, new to wiki and while i did keep tabs on the talk page i missed this! Littlerootlodge (talk) 12:41, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Secondary sources do exist and are being put in, so please don't remove entries from the tables to make this process of adding references more difficult. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 13:23, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I observe the irony in begging to differ with you about the mandate of Wikipedia, and as an electrical engineer it's a difficult position for me to be the wet blanket on this topic; nonetheless I can't help but feel that excitement might tempt us to confuse comprehensive reporting with encyclopedic reporting. As secondary sources have been added I have grown more comfortable with the existing inclusions, and perhaps what I am actually nervous about is the evaluative presentation.

SJ rightly observed that we should prefer to see openly failed replications at this stage in the game. But when we report those as "preliminary negative results," we're playing the role of peer reviewers. Essentially Wikipedia then insinuates that "yes, this paper legitimately tested the substance in question, and preliminarily found that it doesn't work."

The reader surely has a burden here to recognize that failed replications are attributable to various causes, and top exercise discretion. Nonetheless I prefer that we be more conservative in the summary table. As to the want for a broad summary of present replication efforts, is there a reason this is not sufficient? Moonjail (talk) 18:30, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

"Only place where one can get a broad sense of where various replication efforts stand" does not stand up to scrutiny. In fact, most of the table has been plagiarized from this blog post by Eiri Sanada, which they have strongly objected to on Twitter. [1] [2] I'll be deleting the table over copyvio concerns. [osunpokeh/talk/contributions] 04:46, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The table is not a copyright infringement, as just about every content item and the layout is different. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:54, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Nobody cares about your table. Reallyyoudidthat (talk) 06:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

By her own admission to vice (https://www.vice.com/en/article/5d9yez/diy-scientists-and-institutions-are-racing-to-replicate-the-room-temperature-superconductor) she took the idea ("copied") the table from the Spacebattles forums (https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/claims-of-room-temperature-and-ambient-pressure-superconductor.1106083/page-21).

What we are doing is no different. She seems hypocritical and her posts saying she's a "former/retired editor" indicates she has a vendetta against Wikipedia. ShotoKye (talk) 12:40, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

We're a bit out in the weeds now, but want to indicate my strong disagreement. That attribution seems like a bit of a reach, not to mention failing WP:AGF (which does not or should not apply only on-site). I read more concern for quality than ill will toward Wikipedia(ns). Moonjail (talk) 00:21, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

+1. In terms of usefulness as a primary source (a clear record of what a verifiable person did, as plausibly claimed by them + not just attributed to them), I would say

arXiv paper by people at notable labs >> same as technical report on a blog >> social media post by notable scientist > social media post by researcher in materials lab >> social media post by pseudonym in a basement.

And our biggest challenge currently is we need more unambiguous papers. – SJ + 17:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I am not happy with persistent additions of blogs (such as wordpress) to the article. Blogs are only ok if they are written by an expert in the field, which in this case would probably amount to someone notable for Wikipedia.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:04, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Potentially Notable Reference

According to the claims of this post on YCombinator, LK-99 may not be a superconductor "in a traditional sense". To quote, "it should be first noted that this substance is not a strict superconductor in the current theory." It is said to be engineered with certain tradeoffs, removing properties typically associated with superconductors (e.g. Meissner effect) to enable operation at room temperature. Thus it would be less likely to be classified as a superconductor, even if it did conduct current with zero resistance. The post received "substantial updates" since its initial release, which fixed "possible misreadings and inaccuracies".

The speculation that specifically caught my attention was "This whole discourse should make you more careful to conclude whether LK-99 is a superconductor or not, because we may well end up with a revised definition of SC as a result." This may or may not be notable, but I thought the source was worth surfacing if not done so already.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36996337 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.10.151.165 (talk) 03:56, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes we should be careful not to be duped (I am a skeptic), but this post is sort of a blog post, so I don't think it is suitable as a source. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:14, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

"Status" Column is confusing

different phrases have the same color while the same phrase also has a different color, I guess the color is based on outcome but wouldn't it be smarter then to color the "Result" Column? Littlerootlodge (talk) 08:39, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, its a tad confusing. Could be more intuitive. Not a super big deal though. Wikiwillz (talk) 16:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Agree it is confusing. The reasoning for the colouring isn't intuitive. ShotoKye (talk) 21:54, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

New suggested colouring scheme for status column. (I have made these changes so far.)

Text should be different for theoretical studies.

- Grey (unknown): "Unknown". - No information on results.

- Grey (unreleased): "Preliminary results unavailable". - No pre-print paper, some of the results announced.

- Yellow (partial): "Preliminary Results Available". - Pre-print paper available to read. Results announced.

- Green (active): "Peer-reviewed". Peer-reviewed paper in journal.

- Red (eliminated): "Redacted". Paper that failed peer review, redacted by authors or was redacted after publication in journal.

Possible also to use.

- Turquoise (unofficial2): Full results announced where no pre-print paper is expected (e.g. In form of patent or other channel.)

------------------

New suggested colouring scheme for "Result"

Unsure whether to colour theortical study results or leave them uncoloured.

- Grey (unknown): "-". - No results yet.

- Red (faliure): Results do not support LK-99 being room-temperature superconductor.

- Orange (partial faliure): Results mostly do not support LK-99 being room temperature superconductor.

- Yellow (partial success): Results mostly do support LK-99 being room-temperature superconductor.

- Green (success): Results support LK-99 being room-temperature superconductor.

e ShotoKye (talk) 23:54, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

can the colors be more contrasting? (especially yellow and orange). It is a nightmare for colorblind and colorweak people ILikeGoldCoastAndCpp (talk) 12:33, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

This seems fine. But: is the current color-setup automatically generated by the template? – SJ + 02:31, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes. Colours are defined by template seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Table_cell_templates

Template names for these colours I put in brackets in my list. ShotoKye (talk) 05:01, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I added something quickly but agree the key needs to be built out more thoroughly. \/\/slack (talk) 12:23, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Replication Color Key

Partial success and partial failure are basically the same color and it's driving me crazy. Is there no respect for the color blind? There's gotta be a better way to color code this stuff. DontLikeRedesign (talk) 12:16, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree, what if instead full success was forest green, partial success lime green, partial failure light pink, full failure bright red? 2600:4040:58EB:F00:DDED:4508:DCA0:7280 (talk) 15:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Summarizing replication efforts

These tables should be concise overviews to inform the article, not hat racks for any unreviewed preprints or claims that emerge. It so happens that some of the very early analyses were from highly notable labs. But in general these tables should be a selection of the most relevant work at any point in time. My take:

• We shouldn't include self-reported efforts (e.g., me posting on twitter that my lab is starting a replication - like the Czech effort, currently.).
• We shouldn't include other reported efforts that haven't published anything. (publishing setup, process, method, &c counts as something, which is an argument to keep Varda, but the others don't have a reason to be there)
• We probably only need one of the 3 simultaneous DFT analyses, which largely go over the same ground and didn't see one another's work so duplicate rather than including by reference. Where they differ is in their conclusions (different directions of informed speculation). A comment can indicate the 2 other supporting works and the nuances each looked at.

The tables should also be more concise: perhaps we can drop the References column; refs should be inline with claims, wherever possible, and the rest can be attached to a "Media mentions:" line at the end of publication status. – SJ + 11:56, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Its worth noting that Chinese Wikipedia is being much more lax on what to report and what not to report. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK-99

ShotoKye (talk) 00:51, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Chinese Wikipedia is Chinese Wikipedia. English Wikipedia is known to be one of the strictest in terms of burden of proof for inclusion. AncientWalrus (talk) 21:00, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, Chinese Wikipedia seems to has much more information on replication efforts. An arxiv publication is noteworthy enough for those with interest in recent developments. DontLikeRedesign (talk) 15:58, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Need to include Czech effort from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at Charles University in Prague: https://twitter.com/CondMatfyz/status/1687007611806195712 2001:D08:DF:C306:4D89:AEE6:5F74:ECD (talk) 18:22, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

We are requiring more than a twitter announcement now. A secondary reference to support the importance and reliability of the work. See if you can find it reported in a news or magazine type source. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:03, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

I have updated the Taiwan entry now reported in a news site. Is this ready for article table? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:07, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

A Taiwan News cite ought to be sufficient for inclusion, I think. ☆ Bri (talk) 04:13, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't see how Varda's can be considered a notable attempt. The guy is just short of an amateur and to have found Fe impurities in a synthesis which doesn't use Fe at all means that some serious contamination must have occurred.

I think it would be best to remove it from the table and add maybe one sentence mentioning it in the text, if at all. The fact his attempt went viral and the livestream don't really confer him any additional reputability. 5.179.164.155 (talk) 11:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Mechanism review

The mechanism section needs work, and should be shorter. While some theories have been proposed, none is known; and in the absence of observed sc it's hard to describe a potential mechanism for a potential observation w/o implying the observation has occurred. – SJ + 08:33, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I simplified the existing text, but I am afraid as soon as both references are in Korean I can not do much more. Tbh it is very suspicious that we do not have English references on the subject. Ymblanter (talk) 08:40, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I removed the following section, as it's synth from old papers. The article should only contain summaries of mechanisms that are clearly described by secondary sources, or in quotes from interviews, or proposed specifically for this material (e.g., a new paper on "mechanism for LK-99 levitation", like the ferromagnetic half-levitation paper). – SJ + 08:56, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposed mechanism for diamagnetism

Although the Meissner effect cannot be seen in one-dimensional superconductors, Hyun-Tak Kim claims that a sample of LK-99 shows a strong diamagnetism of 5450 times that of graphite, despite its low purity, although no Meissner effect was observed. A suggestion is that the measured three-dimensional LK-99 sample has a polycrystal structure which may result in appearance of both superconductive and diamagnetism. Chair also pointed out that single crystals and composites can have very different properties.

Currently, the section is misleading QCentre supports both SQW and and BR-BCS while it . In fact, SQW is Kwon's theory(sukbae-2023). Unfortunately, QCentre already stated they requested to discard the paper and they disagree to publish the paper. BR-BCS is Hyun-tak Kim's theory. Hyun-tak Kim wrote(ref: SBS interview) the paper(sukbae-2023-2) referring BR-BCS theory which QCentre team agreed. Their original theory is none of them. It was electron superfluid(sukbae-2023b). It is removed since https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=LK-99&diff=1169305425&oldid=1169304194. Since Hyun-tak Kim already finished LK-99 with BR-BCS in 2022(interview), both sukbae-2023b and sukbae-2023-2 are QCentre's official papers with different view with or without Hyuntak's theory. Since only Hyun-tak take interviews while Sukbae doesn't, confirming QCentre still keeps their original theory in sukbae-2023b will be hard at the moment. But confirming QCentre replaced sukbae-2023-2 with sukbae-2023b will be also impossible. At least the superfluid theory looks more important than SQW by citating QCentre.

The mechanism is complex and much more work is warranted as we can see from prior work in this area which was established through extensive theory connected with metrology. Adding relevant references from Rev.Mod.Phys to give the context is warranted. --QuantumJIM1994 (talk) 21:11, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

The prior brevity of this section which only cited a single arxiv paper from LBNL is too short. It risks making that single paper as the sole source (which can still be incorrect) The replication by other groups is relevant within the context of the LK99 research being new and fast changing. Also to note are the additional insights provided in the references. Citations to critical work listing the gaps should not be deleted to allow readers to have knowledge of the required future work. --QuantumJIM1994 (talk) 21:11, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Youknowone (talk) 12:44, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Mention of Salvatore Pais ?

This patent [2] related to LK-99 mentions another patent [3] filed by Salvatore Pais. Apart from these WP:PRIMARY sources there seems to be no WP:RS connecting Pais to this article.

As such I have to ask: Is it really helpful to simply place a link to Pais in the "See also" section ?

I think not. Lklundin (talk) 18:02, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I have not seen any relation between the two in WP:RS except in Wikipedia, just blogs and forums. "See also" seems fitting.--ReyHahn (talk) 18:20, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

With no context provided, I struggle to see how a typical reader would understand the relevance of a link to this individual.

Enix150: You added the link, how is the reader supposed to understand the relevance of this ? Lklundin (talk) 18:26, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:SEEALSO, I added some context to the link in the article. Lklundin (talk) 18:33, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for adding context, I wasn't exactly sure how to summarize their relationship. Enix150 (talk) 20:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Why is the Pais guy mentioned AT ALL?

On the page for that guy it links back here to LK-99 - this to me looks like link farming. 94.14.250.118 (talk) 18:22, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

His controversial room-temperature superconductor patent is cited in the LK-99 patent. Enix150 (talk) 20:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

No reason to include. The cite in the patent was added by the reviewer because of keyword matches in the titles. Please don't keep adding this link. – SJ + 21:53, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I believe you are mistaken. Pais' patent is one of the five patents cited in the Patent Citations section, not the Similar Documents section that was added by the reviewer. Enix150 (talk) 22:03, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I would say leave it out, as Pais' patent is for a totally different method. Also Pais' patent is not supported by papers or on-line frenzy, so it is a pretty different topic. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

I will expand. The Pais superconductivity does not appear supported by research, publications, replication attempts and so appears to not be notable in itself. There are far more other claimants of high temperature conductivity, eg perforated graphite in aliphatic hydrocarbon, or nitrogen doped lutetium hydride, but we don't have to list hem all. It would be better for our reader to look at room-temperature superconductor article or unidentified superconducting object (looks like yet to be written) to see what is this all about. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:00, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

My original point was that NOTHING about this guy is mentioned anywhere else on the page this is link farming - neither page mentions the other EXCEPT in the see also section and it's just a link. 94.14.250.118 (talk) 04:03, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, luckily, now you know how they are related because User:Lklundin added a description next to the link. Unfortunately, User:Sj has since removed it. Enix150 (talk) 04:54, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Mishchenko group

Now we finally got serious people working on the topic: [4]. They characterized the samples and do not see any superconductivity. Not including this to the article because there was no media reaction yet; I am sure it is coming. Ymblanter (talk) 05:22, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and the Schoop Lab paper (Jiang, et al) and new IOP/CAS paper are also thorough and excellent. I tried to trim the page a bit. We will have to refactor the presentation to provide balance and not overweight towards the early fast publications. – SJ + 05:32, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, absolutely. Ymblanter (talk) 05:49, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Guderian has a nice terse summary of latest updates; waiting for an RS to issue similar quotes. – SJ + 11:06, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Schoop Lab 2023-08-09 said:

1. Samples following the described synthesis are multi-phase

2. Single crystals of an apatite phase can be isolated and are transparent. Our SXRD solution agrees with published powder pattern

3. Cu doping on Pb site seems not feasible based on formation energy calculations

And finally: even if we assume the Cu doped structure to be correct, theory predicts (for the given structure) a magnetic ground state due to localized flat bands.

I.e. they haven't measured properties yet, but a very detailed material structure analysis of both synthesized samples and theoretical models of the structure would suggest that the resulting products following the synthesis steps do not have the crystal structure proposed, and that they are unlikely to be superconducting.

from the Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics at IoP-CAS:

Lee et al. reported that the compound LK99, with a chemical formula of Pb_{10−x}Cu_x(PO_4)_6O (0.9<x<1.1), exhibits room-temperature superconductivity under ambient pressure. In this study, we investigated the transport and magnetic properties of pure Cu_2S and LK-99 containing Cu2S. We observed a sharp superconducting-like transition and a thermal hysteresis behavior in the resistivity and magnetic susceptibility. However, we did not observe zero-resistivity below the transition temperature. We argue that the so-called superconducting behavior in LK-99 is most likely due to a reduction in resistivity caused by the first order structural phase transition of Cu_2S at around 385 K, from the βべーた phase at high temperature to the γがんま phase at low temperature.

I.e. the Cu2S impurity that had been mentioned in several places already seems like they might actually be responsible for QERC's "superconductor-like" resistivity and magnetic susceptibility graph, where a rapid drop in resistivity occurrs at temperatures similar to that reported in QERC's initial papers. Cu2S undergoes a first-order phsae transition at around 385K, where it's resistivity drops by several orders of magnitudes, and it's diamagnetism also exhibits a sharp transition, albeit not as pronounced as the resistivity drop.

References list is absurdly long

The references list for this article is absurd now. Can the laymen leave the experts alone and not force them to reference every single bloody thing 94.14.250.118 (talk) 04:05, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

• ED: the first reference is to a trivial calculation - to put it differently, would you cite an online calculator when writing "30cm (approx 1ft)" - no.

  Seriously it is:

  "2514.2 AMU /(sin(60°)*9.843*9.843*7.428 Å^3)". WolframAlpha (calculation). Archived from the original on 29 July 2023. Retrieved 29 July 2023.

  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.14.250.118 (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, removed the Wolfram Alpha citation with an edit summary acknowledging both your comment here, and WP:CALC. ☆ Bri (talk) 05:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Originally I just put this reference as an edit summary to show where I got the density from, as no one seemed to have published it before, but it could be calculated based on published info. I don't think it needs to be referenced as such. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:49, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

One way to cut the list back is to remove all those archives that don't work. It appears that video archiving does not function. And Tweets can be replaced with a secondary reference that reports on them. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:55, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the density's link to the WolframAlpha calculation is helpful and a reader informed well enough to read and understand the LK-99 article can _not_ be expected to understand or know why the density has its stated value without some kind of note explaining how and from what numbers it is calculated. Lklundin (talk) 08:25, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2023

 Not done: per WP:ARXIV. If the paper passes review we can use the journal citation. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 13:56, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

PS: as your IP address is in the same city as the author's academic institution, you should disclose your relationship to this research. Thanks. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 14:06, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Request for help from another user

The user LS-Phys-86 sent me the following email asking for help editing the article (I suspect they don't understand how Wikipedia works and the purpose of the Talk page):

Both links, [27] and [91], lead to a same paper. [27] is correct. Please recover the [b1] superscript from this paper's reference.

I don't really have time to look into this, but if anyone wants to take a look and possibly help this user with their edit request, they can. RaphaelQS (talk) 19:20, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

change "" to "" LS-Phys-86 (talk) 21:07, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

 Done The two versions differ by just four numbers. Neither those numbers nor the dates of publication are referenced in the article, so it's a safe merge. Closhund/talk/ 15:48, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

References

arXiv citations

I count no fewer than 18, but I may have missed one or two. I also notice the top four editors of this article are well-tenured, and one an admin. AS a three-month-old, help me understand how cataloging potentially bogus research doesn't violate any number of rules related to reliable sourcing and WP not being a dumping-ground for arbitrary information. With about 70 other sources that appear more reliable, isn't there plenty enough to work with already? I'm especially concerned about this because I just declined to add another one from an undisclosed probable COI IP editor. How many of the 18 are included because of similar shenanigans? Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 14:36, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I see many of them are paired with secondary sources. Xan747 ✈️ 🧑‍✈️ 15:00, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

Appearance

Apparently the pure stuff is purple:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02585-7#ref-CR6

Or Purple-brown according to the arxiv paper:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2308.06256.pdf

©Geni (talk) 07:31, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Just a message of thanks to everybody who has contributed to this article.

It's the speed of this rapidly updating article that shows the true value of Wikipedia and it's contribution to the fourth estate.

It also shows how science is getting better performing replication & checking of data. Something that it has egregiously bad at in the past, leading to years of misunderstandings & leading to both harm & & the destruction of life on ea thanks to everyone involved in this article. Thankyou for rapidly bringing me up to date 82.6.88.43 (talk) 08:22, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Time to trim this article?

Now that superconductivty in copper-doped lead oxyapatite has more or less been debunked, should the article be reworked to provide a summary of research rather than a blow by blow account? For example, replace the table of theoretical papers with a few sentences, with citations, summarising the predictions.

On the other hand, it would seem sensible to add the cleaner synthesis route from the Max Planck Institute to the synthesis section. Lavateraguy (talk) 11:35, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Not until peer review is complete. DontLikeRedesign (talk) 20:28, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Updated patent

• Francisco Pires (August 24, 2023). "Is LK-99 a Superconductor After All? New Research and Updated Patent Say So". Tom's Hardware.

Just putting this up for possible update to the article. I'm not sure where we're at wrt popular press versus new scientific papers and peer reviewed stuff. This piece mentions that the authors updated the patent to include silicon and copper doping, which are not in the article #Other discussion by authors as I press "save". ☆ Bri (talk) 17:25, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

One wonders where silicon would come from in the reported synthesis, but I suppose it could come from the glassware. But the lacunar apatite would be Pb
₅(PO
₄)
₂SiO
₄, which is a lot of silicon. (The germanate analog is known from nature, and silicate can substitute for phosphate in a variety of apatites.) A silicon doped version would be Pb
₁₀(PO
₄)
_3-2x(SiO
₄)
_2xO
_1-x - you need two silicate ions for each oxygen vacancy. The copper and silicon doped version would be Pb
₉Cu(PO
₄)
_3-2x(SiO
₄)
_2xO
_1-x Lavateraguy (talk) 10:41, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Maybe a little from glassware but the synthesis was mostly done in a quartz tube wasn't it? Maybe the mortar and pestle?? ☆ Bri (talk) 17:07, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Quartz (SiO2) might well be a better (at least cleaner) source of silicon than borosilicate glass (which is what Wikipedia elswhere tells me is used in labware). Lavateraguy (talk) 20:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

i'm making my own superconductor and naming it lk-100!

it's gonna work at room temperature and oven temperature so you can put your pc into your oven! {{jokes}} Tweeeg (talk) 20:19, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Good for you. Ymblanter (talk) 20:22, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

New development

Could be worth adding to the article: https://twitter.com/pronounced_kyle/status/1742588127628361809 Artem S. Tashkinov (talk) 00:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

see https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00999 but not a strong confirmation. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Popular press is covering this preprint, maybe enough to update the article: Tech Crunch, Tom's Hardware, The Hindu (subscription required) ☆ Bri (talk) 16:58, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

No reliable sources yet. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:35, 5 January 2024 (UTC).

This article contains a partial translation of LK-99 from zh.wikipedia. (1196050999 et seq.)

Te0sla (talk) 10:59, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Sulfur in chemical structure

The American Physical Society meeting notice (currently citation #3) lists sulfur as one of the chemical constituents. This is at odds with #Chemical properties and structure. ☆ Bri (talk) 22:45, 7 February 2024 (UTC)