OP's video has two stacked metal objects – could the lower one possibly contain copper?
Edit: relevant Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin-stabilized_magnetic_levit...
If this is fake, it's a very well-done fake. I'm feeling 60% sure that LK-99 is RT superconductor at this point. It has theoretical support now since last weekend.
So, it's easy to imagine how this could be faked.
It appears he was a latecomer to the project, mostly borrowing his reputation to the trio of anonymous, non anglosphere native original authors.
The original authors have something. They don't have the expertise in condensed matter physics to really know what. They don't know how to report results and what results would be conclusive. Their work is simply not convincing, and if they were experts they would also not be convinced.
That's why they brought in another collaborator who is an expert. But because the paper was released early it's clearly a mess. You can see the big quality improvement though just between the two drafts.
If I had a magnet that was much bigger than the superconductor it would look even more similar (less 'pivoty').
2. In the video, while the effect dynamics look quite good for flux pinning, there is some really concerning artifacting on the alleged LK-99 piece while it bounces. Specifically, it looks like it may be attached to a taut horizontal string that has then been edited out, but they didn't successfully rotoscope over the parts very close to the alleged LK-99 piece during specific moments. This could just be a compression artifact, I have never seen one like this but apparently this is a capture of a capture by the time we can access it, and I don't use Douyin or Bilibili so I wouldn't have a lot of familiarity with what their compression artifacts look like.
Basically, I am pretty sceptical about this video in specific. I do think LK-99 is more likely than not at this point, but I also think it's more likely than not that this specific video is not real.
I also think it's extremely likely that as LK-99's profile raises and VFX editors get more familiar with what exactly a real video should look like, convincing fakes are going to be produced and go viral. The most common way this happens is that the VFX artist does it as an exercise and shows a few people without ill intent, but the video is then reposted by other people a few times until it reaches a wide audience who has no chance of knowing its origin. However, there are some scammers/influencers who are good with VFX and can fake a video themselves.
Basically, be a little bit careful about video, and things you should want are: the camera is moving around the piece and not static, the light changes during the video, the pieces themselves are moving, you see the pieces getting set up or finished later, and there's stuff moving all around the object to make strings less likely.
It's trivial to record a video 20x longer with a moving POV without revealing IP or secrets, but far from easy to product 20x more doctored vfx.
The context here is rather strange as well, the same user uploaded another video that no one would believe actually demonstrated the meissner effect. Its a very small magnet on just a piece of paper. Did the user try again with this video?
If all of this checks out, then it's a new era.
For now LK-99 is an material that displays some of the superconducting properties at room temperature.
Although generally the accepted method is that other labs reproduce it and that the paper passes peer review. Some videos aren't enough.
- video recorder in a kitchen or living room
- created by some random tiktok account
- no credentials, no description
- tagged "mysterious"
It's hard to understand how anyone would believe this, specially after so many other fakes
As for this video, well, it's like all the other ones that came before it, we'll know more once we have more data/videos/replication attempts.
> He posted on his personal social media, According to public information, he is an assistant engineer in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials of Wuhan University of Science and Technology, and is also a doctoral candidate at the school.
Assume for now (subject to verification, of course!) that this material is a non-Cooper-pair superconductor.
Could one still build Josephson junctions -- and SQUIDs -- from this material?
If the answer is "yes", it's going to make a whole lot of magnetotelluric geophysicists very, VERY happy.
Typical setups are networked fields of multiple axis sub nanotesla magnetic sensors with processing to reduce noise and subtract interference in order to extract a differential change across time and space to convert to a deep earth image.
You know, the usual stuff.
The essential principal is a fixed sensor (network) that records the diurnal (daily) magnetic flux and specifically locals for local 'drag' caused by local features (deep metal deposits, more generally volumes with varying magnetic properties).
It feels like this thing soon will start appearing all over ebay and aliexpress
https://health.ucdavis.edu/news/headlines/little-magnets-are...
This is to create a risk reduction mechanism for investing in capital to make this at scale, which will cost on the order of $100-500M to scale for world use through trial and error.
If IP is ignored, no business will invest in the initial experiments due to first mover disadvantage in game theory.
> Patents are territorial and must be filed in each country where protection is sought.
[0] https://www.stopfakes.gov/article?id=Is-My-US-Patent-Good-in...
Other diamagnets do that too, but in a decaying way that allows for movement. They usually rotate or move slowly sideways.
No other kind of magnetism show similar behavior. They either attract or repel all the way in.
Because it is starting to seem like it's the latter.
> “ Specifically they were one of the last believers of long-forgotten Russian theory of superconductivity, pioneered by Nikolay Bogolyubov. The accepted theory is entirely based on Cooper pairs, but this theory suggests that a sufficient constraint on electrons may allow superconductivity without actual Cooper pairs. This requires carefully positioned point defects in the crystalline structure, which contemporary scientists consider unlikely and such mode of SC was never formally categorized unlike type-I and type-II SC. Professor Tong-seek Chair (최동식) represented a regret about this status quo (in 90s, but still applies today) that this theory was largely forgotten without the proper assessment after the fall of USSR. It was also a very interesting twist that Iris Alexandria, "that Russian catgirl chemist", had an advisor who was a physicist-cum-biochemist studied this theory and as a result were so familiar with the theory that they were able to tell if replications follow the theoretical prediction.”
So it might be an old hypothesis brought back?
(This isn't a commentary on the truthfulness of the superconductor claims.)
Most hypotheses are wrong, and even if they turn out right it may well be a case of being right for the wrong reasons. Regardless, this is top tier research: unglamorous, uninstagramable drudgery guided by intellect. Sure, there's luck involved, but research always involves luck.
Note to pedants: yes yes, the Venn diagram has an intersection.
That's how a levitating train levitates.
Things like making hot sauce from latex gloves, or turning toilet paper into high proof alcohol.
He's a fantastic no-nonsense youtuber.
