LK-99 作为一种室温超导材料在去年引发了公众的广泛关注，然而作者认为这种关注更多源于社会环境而非科学本身。作者分析了 LK-99 的几个关键特性，包括其在常压下的超导性、视频传播以及社会环境的影响，并指出社会对科技乐观主义和悲观主义的争论以及社交媒体的传播方式都助长了 LK-99 事件的热度。作者还强调了科学研究中社会环境对研究结果的影响，并以阿兹海默症的淀粉样蛋白理论为例说明了这种影响。最后，作者建议读者要学会独立思考，不要盲目相信社会共识，并了解信息传播背后的动机和利益关系。

🤔 LK-99 的超导性缺乏理论基础：LK-99 的超导性缺乏理论支撑，其结构并没有显示出特别强的电子-声子相互作用，而这种相互作用是超导现象的关键。作者认为，LK-99 的超导性可能来自其他因素，例如铁磁性或顺磁性。

🎥 视频传播与社交媒体的影响：LK-99 的视频传播和社交媒体的传播方式在事件的热度中扮演了重要角色。一些社交媒体账号发布了虚假的 LK-99 超导性视频，而一些理论家也试图为 LK-99 找到理论依据，这都表明社会环境对科学研究的影响。

😔 社会环境对科学研究的影响：作者认为，社会环境对科学研究结果的影响不容忽视。以阿兹海默症的淀粉样蛋白理论为例，该理论虽然存在争议，但由于社会环境的推动，该理论仍然得到广泛认可，并导致了大量资金投入到基于该理论的药物研发中。

💡 如何应对信息爆炸时代：作者建议读者要学会独立思考，不要盲目相信社会共识，并了解信息传播背后的动机和利益关系。要学会寻找可靠的专家，并对信息进行批判性思考。

📚 科学研究的复杂性：作者认为，科学研究是一个复杂的过程，其结果不仅取决于科学本身，还与社会环境、利益关系等因素息息相关。要对科学研究保持理性态度，并对信息进行独立思考和批判性分析。

🧠 科学与社会环境的互动：LK-99 事件是一个典型案例，它反映了科学与社会环境之间的相互作用。社会环境可以影响科学研究的方向和结果，而科学研究的结果也会反过来影响社会环境。

🧪 科学研究的伦理问题：LK-99 事件也引发了人们对科学研究伦理的思考。在科学研究中，要重视数据真实性和研究方法的科学性，避免数据造假和学术不端行为。

🧬 科学研究的社会责任：科学研究不仅要追求科学真理，还要承担社会责任。要将科学研究成果应用于解决社会问题，并为社会发展做出贡献。

🌐 信息传播的挑战：在信息爆炸的时代，我们要学会辨别真伪，避免被虚假信息误导。要培养批判性思维能力，并学会从多个角度思考问题。

🤝 科学与社会共建：科学研究需要社会支持，而社会发展也需要科学进步。要加强科学与社会的沟通，促进科学知识的普及，让科学更好地服务于社会。

🙏 理性思考的重要性：我们要保持理性思考，不要被情绪和偏见左右。要对信息进行批判性分析，并保持独立思考的能力。

💡 科学的本质：科学是不断探索和求真的过程，它需要严谨的科学方法和批判性思维。我们要相信科学的力量，并为科学发展贡献力量。

Published on July 7, 2024 2:06 AM GMT

About a year ago, there was a lot of public interest in a supposed room-temperature superconductor called LK-99. What I publicly said at the time was, basically:

We should remember the possibility that apparent levitation is from ferromagnetism or paramagnetism. Iron filings can stand up on a magnet, and pyrolytic graphite can float over a strong magnet.

If we consider some known high-temperature superconductors:

YBCO has flat sheets of copper oxide, and superconductivity happens along those planes. The copper in that has high positive charge density, comparable to aluminum atoms in alumina, which gives strong bonding to the oxygen.

H3S (paper) has unusually strong bonds between the sulfur and hydrogen, which only form because the atoms are pressed into each other with enough pressure to substantially compress liquid water.

Superconductivity comes from flow of Cooper pairs, and the electron-phonon interaction must be stronger than random thermal movement. LK-99 doesn't seem to have any reason to have exceptionally strong such interactions. (Yes, I'm simplifying, you have to consider phonon bandgaps, but the point is at least directionally correct.)

The focus on "room-temperature" superconductivity is a bit silly. Even with systems using liquid nitrogen cooling, the superconducting wires are much more expensive than the cooling. What's really needed for superconductors to be practical is cheaper superconducting wires, not higher-temperature ones.

At the time, I found the unusual amount of public interest a bit bemusing. There have been various claims of near-room-temp superconductivity, but none of them attracted as much public attention as LK-99. A few months earlier, Ranga Dias published a paper claiming room-temperature superconductivity; he's now up to 5 retractions.

What was different about LK-99?

That was supposedly superconducting at ambient pressure, which makes it more practical, but also means less specialized equipment is needed to replicate it - or claim to replicate it.LK-99 had a video that appealed to people.

There were also a few social conditions that I think were important:

It had been a while since that last major excitement about fake science news. After some big story that turns out to be wrong, people are more skeptical of science stories in every field for a while, and then things gradually go back to a baseline. (That's how things were after eg the "arsenic in DNA" story, which didn't make sense either: arsenate esters aren't stable enough for DNA.) I understand the heuristic that people applied but the way it's applied here doesn't really make sense.

Misleading short videos + social media is a combination that hadn't really been applied to bad science stories before.

I think the atmosphere at the time had a lot of demand for ammunition in a wider techno-optimist vs techno-pessimist conflict. ("Room-temperature superconductors and Boom Technology making practical supersonic aircraft! We're so back!")

I think those overall conditions caused the LK-99 story to be self-amplifying, because:

Several twitter accounts made fake videos showing "replication" of LK-99 superconductivity, because it was just good social media strategy. I think iris_IGB is still up a lot of followers overall. Don't hate the player, hate the game, I guess.Some theorists jumped on the story by finding "theoretical justifications" because it seemed like a net career positive, statistically speaking.

In many cases, whether the social status of a scientific theory is amplified or diminished over time seems to depend more on the social environment than on whether it's true. For example, the amyloid theory of Alzheimer's is still going, and real money is being paid for drugs based on it that don't help people. The social environment created a demand for evidence, and so fake evidence was produced by people including the former president of Stanford.

For my part, a couple of the grad students I talked with seeing data falsification going on in their lab was a big reason for my skepticism of the university system when I was in high school. Later on, an acquaintance tried to make an issue out of apparent bad data and ended up being bullied by the professor to the point of suicide. (PIs have a lot of power over their grad students' life and career prospects.) But I wanted to warn people not to consider such things enough of a justification to avoid getting an undergraduate degree, with how things currently are. It's quite important to spend 16 years studying in school to get a certification that will get an HR person you'll never meet who spends one minute looking at your resume to not throw it out, and it does sound like a joke when I put it like that, but it isn't.

Anyway, if there's a moral of this story, I suppose it's that, if you're smart, you should learn enough technical details to be able to find experts to trust on your own instead of relying on societal consensus. Or maybe it's that you should understand the incentives of the people who determine which stories get spread and considered credible? Actually, maybe it's that people have biases towards believing or not believing in stories that often outweigh the evidence? Or maybe the moral is, real events don't have a single clear moral to them, but that's OK because you can read about as many as you want and average out the incidental details.

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