Beijing Superconductor (LK-99) Levitation Video Author Admits Fraud, Takes it Down

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 392 points – Beijing Superconductor Levitation Video Author Admits Fraud, Takes it Down
tomshardware.com

Beijing Superconductor (LK-99) Levitation Video Author Admits Fraud, Takes it Down::The author of one of the Billibilli videos posted as proof of LK-99's levitation capabilities has admitted that his posting was a hoax.

35

Is there a word for something that is disappointing but simultaneously unsurprising?

Inevitable?

It's worth pointing out that all this is is the video from the Beijing example which I honestly haven't even heard about. This does not mean the product itself is a fraud which I'm sure people are going to jump up and down on.

If it is disappointing it doesn't fulfill your expectations. But if you expected it to happen then it's not disappointing

Not really, disappointing also includes a failure to fulfill hopes, not just expectations. You can expect an outcome and also be disappointed by it.

So… how much ya wanna bet this guy faked up the video to secure/maintain funding, and didn’t quite realize how far it’d go ….

… and back tracked as soon as they realized there was about to be a shitload of scrutiny.

I should release my paper about how I turned lead into gold. Nobody would care about that one, right?

well, it's already been done. (well, that may not be what's going on in the article, but the particle accelerators have created gold... by doing their smashy-smashy thing)(I'm sure the physicists love it when we reduce decades of their work to sounding like toddlers smacking stuff together to see what happens... it's really grown up serious science!)

So your saying that the person who sold me my alchemist degree and the secret formula was full of shit? Damn.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The original poster of one of the Billibilli videos circulating on the Internet and seemingly proving LK-99's levitation ability has come forward, and admitted his clip was a hoax.

The video in question is allegedly from the University of Science and Technology in Beijing and purports to show a small black substance floating in the air as it follows a magnet.

Whenever a claim as momentous and potentially civilization-changing such as "we've found the world's first room-temperature superconductor" is made, noise is bound to follow.

But even focusing on the hard science (which we want to be clear, replicable, and truthful) and moving on to the boundaries of peer-review scientific process, it becomes difficult to deal with the noise.

Neither the cooking time (how long at what temperatures the mixtures have to stay within a vacuum oven for LK-99 to be synthesized and whether there's thermal variation at any moment) nor the quench rate (the same, but when it needs to cool down) are, however, well-documented.

The video poster ultimately claimed that the experience of being a part of the noise had changed him, and that he'd be more cautious with his actions and words in the future.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Fraud in China. Huh.

Seems like a bad take. This is from the equivalent of some random YouTube video, unrelated to the original university & scientists.

You think it'd be possible to find a YouTube video with some bad science nonsense in it? Would that warrant a "fraud in the US, huh" comment?

Separately, science in China does have a fraud problem. But this video wasn't an example of that.

I mean your example is still accurate. The person posting that video is a fraud, and if they live in America, "fraud in the US" would be most accurate as it singles out a specific person, as opposed to the statement I believe you are trying to make which would be don't judge the whole country by 1 person. Yet they didn't say that, they specifically say a fraud(singular) in China.

i mean the point they were trying to make is pretty clear imo no need to dance around it so pedantically.

They better be careful otherwise the world won't take them seriously anymore, oh wait.

I felt bad for scanning the big list for replication results that weren't Chinese 😞

turns out I was right

China and fraud - like peanut butter and jelly, they just go together naturally

Question for clarity, does it's levation have anything to do with whether or not it's a superconductor?

What I've gathered from many of the discussions around this topic is that the levitation is a notable feature of superconductors due to th Meissner(?) Effect. So if it couldnt levitate, there would be no reason to suspect that it is a superconductor. Because it does levitate, superconductivity is one of a few possibilities.

There have been indicators it may be a semiconductor instead, but apparently the conditions to accurately produce the material are vague/not fully understood - so attempts at reproduction have failed to rule it in or out 100%

Which is also sadly a common component of hoaxes, include some vague component so you can just claim your detractors are doing it wrong.

The reason that superconductors levitate it that they are perfectly diamagnetic. There are other materials that are strongly diamagnetic, such as bismuth , that can be made to levitate but normally the effect is not stable enough without additional components, such as being sandwiched between two powerful magnets. However Pyrolytic carbon will levitate , at room temperature, above a strong enough magnet in the same way as a superconductor would.

Levitation is a fun way to demonstrate that you’ve got a superconductor. That’s not the only way to make things levitate, so not all levitating things are superconductors.

Yeah thats a pretty good summary of what I was trying to convey. If this didn't levitate, no one would've blinked twice. But since it did, its being investigated more thoroughly to check if its one of those other things that levitate (or actually a superconductor)

Diamagnetic materials are also pretty nice. However, normally you would use 4 magnets to make a tiny flake of carbon levitate, so using that to fake a superconductor might be too obvious.

I think we're starting to lose the bigger picture - Re-read that first sentence after the headline (emphasis mine):

"This is only one of several videos from different sources claiming to show the substance levitating."

This isn't about LK-99 per se, but one of the videos that came after the announcement, likely trying to capitalize on it if only for views. There's still hope LK-99 can be corroborated.

It was the video of the guy in Seoul who went to their office that made the fraud painfully obvious.